What Will Westpfahl Focus on as an ISD 199 School Board Member?

As I have been talking to residents of Inver Grove Heights over the past month and a half, I have been asked many questions. Many of the questions focus on my view on the referendums, technology, curriculum, class size and communication. Over the next several weeks, I will be providing more in depth responses to these questions and many more so you can better understand what I plan on bringing to the school board. To learn more about why I am running, you can also visit http://markjwestpfahl.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/markjwestpfahl

In this installment, I will be addressing two topics:
What makes me a qaulified candidate for the board and what issues I would like to address as a board member.

I will bring strong academic qualifications and practical teaching experience to the board. I earned my 5-12 teaching credentials and Bachelor’s Degree in history and geography from at the University of Minnesota. I am pursuing my Masters of Education.

I have served on the Grading Taskforce at Battle Creek Middle School for the past two years and have helped develop their standards-based grading structure. I am also a WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) coordinator at BCMS. WEB is a program designed to allow 8th graders to take a more active leadership role in the school.

I am split between two schools this year and was asked to be a member of the American Indian Magnet School Leadership Team. Administrators look to me as one of only two people in the school to have junior high experience. This is important as this is the first year AIMS has had a seventh grade class. I have helped implement Positive Behavior Intervention Support (PBIS) and am the team lead for our Professional Learning Community (PLC). 

Among the issues I would like to address are technology, communication with parents, enhanced educational opportunities, 21st century curriculum opportunities and teacher mentor programs.

We need to provide our students with options for using technology inside and outside the classroom. Technology can help teacher provide differentiation and modification of lesson plans to meet the needs of every student.

As a district, we need to use technology to communicate with our students, parents and residents of Inver Grove Heights who do not have or no longer have children in the school system. Social media is not the be-all-end-all of our communication base, but we must do a better job using it to keep more people informed. For example, the district’s Twitter account @ISD199 has only been used nine times since the start of school. Despite this, the account has 84 followers. This is a great tool to link parents and students to school events, promote the district website, share school updates, etc.

I would like to see a program that rewards teachers for designing and implementing new courses and curriculum that not only align with state standards but provide a practical link to the real world and inspire critical thinking. Every subject could have “exploratory” courses that start as an elective and could be developed into a full core course. A great set of examples can be found in the social studies course offerings at West Central Area High Schools in northwestern Minnesota, including Law and Teens, Pop Culture I (1945-1975) & Pop Culture II (1975-Present) and Eastern World Geography. (http://www.westcentralareaschools.net/Course%20Description%20handbook.pdf)

Inver Grove Heights Schools have dealt with a lot of staff turnover in the past decade. We need to make sure new teachers or teachers new a particular school are aware of the policies and procedures that are expected in the school. Having a mentor or buddy program that pairs experienced teachers with newer teachers is vital in many ways. A mentor program will help the new teacher adjust to the new surroundings, while also allowing experienced teachers to take on leadership roles within the school. This will help to promote positive interactions between staff and ultimately students, while providing newer teachers with tools to succeed. If our newer teachers feel comfortable and accepted, their performance will improve and their willingness to get involved in the school and the community will increase, hopefully leading to improved retention.

For more information about Mark J. Westpfahl, please visit http://markjwestpfahl.com/ or http://www.facebook.com/markjwestpfahl. You can also follow Mark on Twitter @MarkJWestpfahl

Mark J. Westpfahl
651-246-8574
westp042@umn.edu