Ken Dwight

"Don't you see, Rafe? MY SCHOOL, MY RULES!!"

- Principal Dwight

Principal Ken Dwight (simply known as Ken Dwight) is the main antagonist of the 2016 comedy film, Middle School: The Worst Years Of My Life.

He was the former principal of Hills Village Middle School, and the archenemy of Rafe Khatchadorian.

He was portrayed by Andy Daly of MADtv fame, who also portrayed Mayor Brown.

Personality
Principal Dwight was shown to be a cruel, greedy, selfish, ruthless, tyrannical, domineering, and manipulative man who likes making his students follow the rules. As the movie went on he was shown as a total hypocritical fascist with a huge ego for making the students follow the rules and goes on about how people should always follow the rules, but yet he never actually follows the rules himself, believing that since he's the principal he does not need to follow the rules.

Role in the film
He is the uncaring, atrocious, tyrannical, impolite, grumpy, deceptive, and manipulative principal of Hills Village Middle School, who runs the school as if it were a prison. He is aided by his right-hand Vice Principal Ida Stricker, who is in alignment with his bullying tactics. He makes all of his students follow his code of conduct; it is filled with rules that sucks the fun out of the school. A new student named Rafe Khatchadorian (the protagonist of the film) already gets on Dwight's bad side when he draws an insulting picture of Dwight as a blabbering zombie in his notebook during an assembly that gets seen by other students. As stated in the school's code of conduct, any reading material deemed inappropriate would be destroyed, so Dwight destroys Rafe's notebook containing all of Rafe's old drawings by dumping it into a bucket of acid.

Upset by this, Rafe decides to get even by breaking the rules of Dwight's code of conduct in retaliation. During the time, Dwight notices that ever since the rule breaking started the test scores started slipping, so he tries to do whatever he can to find the culprit and punish him. Dwight tried to handle all the rule breaking, but after the trophy case was turned into an aquarium it drove him off the deep end. So he decides to expand the rules. Dwight then notices that the students that have low test scores are from the remedial class, so Dwight plans on illegally cutting off the remedial class (led by Rafe's favorite teacher Mr. Teller) from the upcoming test called B.L.A.A.R., as he wants to improve the average test scores to get a free bonus from the school district. To that end, he frames the students of the remedial class for the pranks before suspending them. Mr Teller then accuses Dwight of setting the students up, stating that they may be trouble makers and not straight A' students, but that they are smart enough not to leave evidence inside their lockers, making them hardly the ones responsible for the pranks. With Dwight not wanting his plan to be foiled, he accuses Mr Teller of being involved with the pranks and then fires him. Dwight then heads back to his office to call the students's parents and wishes Mr Teller luck of finding a new job. Unwilling to let Mr. Teller and the remedial class take the fall, Rafe heads over to Dwight's office and confesses that he's the one responsible for the pranks. However, Dwight did not seem to care and he offers a deal with Rafe to uplift his suspension in exchange for his silence, but Rafe refuses and demands Dwight to un-suspend the students and give Mr. Teller his job back or he was "gonna make it rain". Rafe then sets off a false fire alarm to prove his point, but this resulted an angry Dwight to expel Rafe for his actions. Rafe's mom Jules is very upset at her son for getting kicked out of at least 3 schools and not telling her that he had problems with Dwight instead of attempting to break the rules, stating that she would have believed Rafe, but it was too late for Jules to talk to Dwight. Jules's boyfriend Carl/Bear suggests sending him to military school, much to Rafe's dismay.

Eventually, Rafe's girlfriend Jeanne Galletta found out that this whole turn of events was to cover up Dwight's actions of cutting off the remedial class from taking B.L.A.A.R. this whole time, having secretly recorded Dwight coercing the local janitor Gus into putting the evidence in the students' lockers to frame them for the pranks. As such,the other suspended students agree to help Rafe get revenge on Dwightby exposing his crimes, even Gus is willing to tag along as he's had enough of Dwight's behavior. The next day, as the entire school is about to take the B.L.A.A.R., Rafe and his classmates interrupted several procedures to expose Dwight's deceitfulness. Just as Dwight has finally caught Rafe in his tracks, Mr. Teller arrives with the local superintendent Hwang, who received a formal complaint from Mr. Teller about the events. Rafe proceeds to present Hwang with the tape exposing Dwight and Stricker's crimes, resulting both Dwight and Stricker to be fired. As Dwight is forced to pack up his things to leave the school, he demands for a full hearing, to which Hwang assures that he'll have it in court as she plans to have him and Stricker prosecuted for their crimes. Rafe is welcomed back into the school and praised as a hero for exposing Dwight's true colors, and it's possible that Dwight will face a sentence in prison for his crimes.

Quotes
"Son, as principal, I think of myself as the father of this school, and there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect a child. Do you follow me? (Rafe: Sure, yeah you think the students are your children.) What? No. The students aren't my children, the school is my child, and you attacked my child today. You punched it in the face. What kind of person punches a child in he face? That was a really important assembly and you ruined it."

- Dwight explaining Rafe as how he thinks of himself as principal of the school.

"Listen, man. I am totally into creativity, I'm a hip-cat from way back then you better believe it. But it doesn't belong in school, art should be locked up in a museum where old people can enjoy or children on field trips. (Rafe: We get to go on field trips to art museums?) God no, that's a complete waste of time."

- Dwight explaining creativity to Rafe.

"All right, rule #26. Read it out loud for me please. (Rafe: Rule 26: "Any written material deemed inappropriate or offensive will be be confiscated and destroyed?") "And destroyed", very good, you're a good reader."

- Dwight telling Rafe rule #26.

"This is a bucket full of acid that is going to completely dissolve your notebook. Probably not a good idea to keep a bucket full of acid in a middle school, but if you can come up with any other ideas to dissolve notebooks, I'm all ears."

- Dwight before destroying Rafe's notebook.

"All right, goodbye, offensive and inappropriate material. (Rafe: Wait, hold on. Please, I've had that book forever and I've worked so hard on all those drawings.) Well, perhaps if you spent so much of your time on something else like your school work, then you would not be here right now. (Rafe: Please, you don't understand, these drawings mean everything to me!) Really? Well, in that case.... (drops Rafe's notebook into the acid) ....rules are rules."

- Dwight destroying Rafe's notebook.

"Well you know, Rafe. That evidence could be real, and I've seen the way those other kids treat you. We could just make it all go away. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut, and you won't have to be suspended. This will all be our little secret. Do we have a deal? (Rafe: You know what? Do what ever you want to me, but keep everybody else out of this, and give Mr. Teller his job back or else!) Or else what? (Rafe steps on Dwight's desk with a lighter in his hand) Hey! What are you doing? (Rafe: I'm gonna make it rain.) (Rafe: Lights the lighter next to one of the fire alarm sprinklers) Hey, no! No no no no. No!"

- Dwight making a proposition with Rafe to cover up his plan (to no avail).

"I've should have known a remedial like you would make a dumb choice! With this little stunt, you've just violated rule #28: "no false fire alarms!" Rafe Khatchadorian, you are officially expelled! Permanently!! Gus, please turn of these sprinklers!!!"

- Dwight after Rafe set of a fire alarm and has had enough of Rafe's behavior.

"(Rafe: Principal Dwight is a hypocrite, who likes to make the rules but thinks he's too good to actually follow them himself! We have proof that he planted evidence in his own students' lockers!) I've just had about ENOUGH OF YOU!!!"

- Dwight when Rafe shows up to stop the B.L.A.A.R, and reveal Dwight's true nature to everyone.

"And the rules clearly state that I have the right to a FULL HEARING!! (Hwang: Rigging state tests is a serious offense. You're done here. I'll make sure you'll get your full hearing, Dwight, in a court of law!) Let's get outta here, Ida. (Stricker: Thought you never ask.)"

- Dwight facing charges after his crimes are exposed.

Trivia

 * In the reoccurring cartoon-fantasy scenes, Dwight is portrayed as a zombie who constantly dances and yells out "BLAAR!"
 * In the book that the movie was originally based on, Dwight was very different from his movie counterpart, being a minor character with only a few short appearances, rather than being the main antagonist like in the movie. He didn't show an abusive tyrannical side like in the movie nor was he shown doing anything illegal or even dodgy, acting more or less like a normal school principal. He even sympathized with the Khatchadorians after learning about Leo's passing. Like many characters, Dwight's physical appearance is quite different in the books than it is in the movie, having a balding head and dark hair. He is also depicted by Rafe as "The Lizard King", instead of a zombie. As well as that, later on, he leaves the school and moves far away, while Stricker take his place as principal.
 * Dwight is similar to Principal Elliot T. Jindraike. They are both self-centered corrupted principals that are both the main antagonists and the enemies to the main protagonists. They also have both broken the law to achieve their goals but end up losing their jobs after being defeated by the main protagonists.