Some new faces will greet returning school students

Posted on: August 22, 2009 | admin | 2 Comments | Print Article | Rate Post:

By Heidi Zemach for the Seward City News

Seward and Moose Pass students return to school on Monday, August 24. Several new and returning teachers and a few new principals have been busy preparing to welcome the students upon their arrival.

Barbara Young is the district’s new Gifted and Talented (QUEST) program coordinator for Seward Elementary, Middle, Moose Pass and Hope schools. Just two days after arriving here in town from Las Vegas, where she worked last, and “hated it,” Young can hardly believe the difference in setting.

“I think it’s beautiful. I’m really happy I came here. I feel I made the right decision—no reservations,” Young said.  Young’s come out of semi-retirement after 20 years of teaching gifted children, for “another experience,” actually, to get back to what she loved doing. Young is particularly looking forward to being able to work with 7th and 8th graders, as she has never had that opportunity. She was surprised to learn that a town of this size had a program like the one offered locally.

Young has traveled widely to teach gifted children—Europe, the East Coast, Colorado, South and Northern Nevada— but never yet in Alaska. Despite all of her travels, she has managed to keep track of the lives of her former students, marveling at what they have managed to achieve as adults.

Seward Middle School’s new principal, John Hersrud, moved with his growing family here recently. He replaces Trevan Walker who has become the high school principal. Born in Rapid City, South Dakota, and raised in Montana, Hersrud has been involved in education across Alaska for the past 18 years. Most recently, he was a member of the CHOICE Program for at-risk students at Juneau High School. Prior to that, he taught Math/Heath and Physiology in the Nome Public Schools, after being the assistant principal at Shishmaref Elementary and High School. Hersrud also taught math and was a career counselor for the Bering Straits School District in Shishmaref, and tutored college math at UAF’s Chukchi Campus during the mid –‘90s. He received a B.S. in Education and Mathematics from Black Hills State University, in Spearfish, South Dakota in ‘87; and an M.S. in Educational Leadership from UAA in 2002.

New middle school science teacher, Al Plan, originally from Kentucky, has been substitute-teaching in Homer for the past year, while coaching JV soccer and basketball there. On his trips to Seward for games, he saw how great a place Seward
was, so he was glad to be hired at the middle school for his first full-time science teaching job. While in graduate school, studying for a Masters degree in Environmental Studies in Charleston, South Carolina, Plan taught an undergraduate biology lab. He also was a teaching assistant for undergraduates in Auburn University, Alabama, where he got his undergraduate degree. Plan also taught environmental education to 5-8 grade students in Charleston, and enjoyed taking them seining. Plan hopes to convey his own passion and enthusiasm for science to his new students, and to inform them how science can connect to careers in the field that might interest them. Plan also hopes to bring community experts in as speakers, or to help with projects or on field trips. He can’t believe the wealth of experts in his field living in town, and all of the great opportunities for making scientific observations right outside the school doors. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has, in the past, worked with students on a salmon-hatching program, which Plan would like to continue if possible.

“The key is to enjoy yourself, and see that the kids enjoy it. Give them the best positive experience they can, or at least get them thinking critically about the field,” Plan said.

After two years at the middle school, Trevan Walker is ready to serve as principal for high school students, with whom he has worked the majority of his career.

“I was always aware that I would return to the high school level. I could not be more pleased with the opportunity to reach this next professional goal,” Walker tells incoming students in a welcoming letter. The high school is sad to note the loss of school psychologist Anne Knofel, who passed away recently. The district is advertising the position. But the school also welcomes two new teachers, Jeffery Wolf, who will teach Spanish and Math, and Bethany Waggener, who will teach Art and a freshman computer class.

Wolf came to Seward a couple of weeks ago from Trevor City, Michigan, where he attended Northern Michigan University at Marquette. Wolf did his student teaching at the Aspen Hills Middle School, and at Gwinn High School, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

“To start out, you have to go where the work is. This is an excellent place to go,” Wolf said. Wolf says he applied for a teaching position in Alaska because his own home state is reeling from rippling effects of the car industry collapse in Detroit. It has one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates, and schools are laying off teachers—not hiring new ones, he said. Teachers of retirement age aren’t doing so these days. Most of his fellow teacher friends had to go overseas to teach ESL classes, so Wolf feels blessed to have found this job. He moved to Seward two weeks ago with his wife Shannon, who is finishing up getting her teaching license.

This year the schools will begin using the New World Languages series through all grade levels, which includes CDs, Internet support materials and links. Wolf has been working to figure out how to use the new teaching materials most effectively. One of his goals is to provide culturally relevant material to Spanish students, and to teach them the bale-out words and phrases to help them relax while conversing in a new language, while still asking the important questions. Learning games will support the lessons taught, and keep learning enjoyable. Wolf will also teach Math half-time.

Bethany Waggoner, born and raised in Anchorage, will teach two beginning art, one advanced art, and a ceramics class. She is looking forward to sharing her creative passion with students, and to living in a place where she always brings friends to visit. In addition to painting and making things, Waggoner also loves sea kayaking. Her general art classes will survey a variety of mediums including drawing, painting and print-making. Looking through the art materials available, Waggoner was delighted to discover six pottery wheels, which she will put to use in her ceramics class.
Waggoner has just received her Masters Degree in Art from the University of Alaska Southeast, in Sitka. She received her Bachelors from Fort Lewis, in Durango, Colorado, where she student-taught at West High School. Waggoner’s other teaching experiences include substitute-teaching for a year and a half in the Anchorage Schools, and teaching ESL classes in Peru, and ELS to adults in Bozeman, Montana.

Photos:

1.    Barbara Young, the new Gifted and Talented teacher
2.    Al Plan, Seward Middle School science teacher
3.    Bethany Waggoner, SHS Art and Computer teacher with her dog, and one of her paintings.
4.    John Hersrud, the new Seward Middle School Principal/teacher, with son Jeremiah.
5.    Jeffrey Wolf, the new Seward High School Spanish and Math teacher.

Other Elementary School News:
Seward Elementary School principal David Kingsland is proud to announce that the school has received the Alaska School Performance Incentive Program grant for the upcoming school year in the program’s third and final year. The grant brings with it an additional $2,500 for each teacher and $1,000 for each of the support staff in Seward, as a reward. Only one other school in the Kenai Peninsula School District, Sterling Elementary, was awarded that honor this year. The program’s goal is to serve as an incentive for all employees in a school to create a learning environment in which student achievement substantially increases.

“We’re a really high performing school,” Kingsland said, a fact that he believes often gets overlooked by area residents. The elementary school has also received a High Achieving School award from the State of Alaska, and was named a National Blue Ribbon School last year. It has also achieved AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) again, under the Federal No Child Left Behind program, as did the middle school, high school, and Moose Pass School.

The elementary school also will have a band for 5th and 6th graders this year, after three years without one. Music teacher Kyle Schneider, hired last year, had been given some time to get settled in before taking on that responsibility, Kingsland said. The school also has lost one teacher—Kim Anderson, a fifth grade teacher—due to declining enrollment. But the school district will reexamine the numbers of students enrolled after school is underway to see whether there is a need
to bring in additional staff or realign any of the multi-grade classrooms, Kingsland said.

Heidi Zemach can be reached at heidizemach@yahoo.com or 907 224-6473

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