The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District reports that Will Chervenak is the 2022 Alaska Association of Secondary School Principals Region III Assistant Principal of the year. Superintendent Clayton Holland congratulated Chervenak for being an outstanding principal saying that he has a continual growth mindset, finding ways to improve, and becoming more effective at having a positive impact on students.
Chervenak told KSRM:
“First of all, I would like to say that this would not have been possible without the amazing staff that I have here, the families that we have here and the support that I’ve been given from them and also by the district. I’ve been given a lot of opportunities since being in the district to improve my professional practice and I would hope that this would, especially in light of these last couple of years that we’ve had and some of the criticisms, that we’ve endured in the community that this would be able to highlight to let people know that we are in the business of good things for kids and that good things are happening in our schools.”
Chervenak says that recognition was never his motivation for making education his life’s work. He expresses appreciation that his efforts have had a positive impact on the Kenai community.
He explains how he got nominated:
“Well really, anybody can nominate you. It can be a staff person, it can be someone from the community, it can be a student, it can be a colleague. They submit their write-up and then they, I believe their process is that they look at the submissions and then they vote and decide.”
Chervenak talks about educating during the pandemic:
“Its tough to explain when there’s not a playbook to go by and you find yourself in the position to where each day presents a new set of challenges. Nothing is predictable. You’re kind of building the airplane as you’re flying it. it has been extremely difficult. Once again, the staff that I have here, the support from the district, and the collegiality that we’ve been able to foster in the years leading up to the pandemic, we really drew on those relationships and the strength that we have here in the district in order to get through. It was a collaborative effort, for sure. It was really interesting to see how the community came together and how the school district came together; (it) took a collaborative approach to listening to different viewpoints.”
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