WORLAND – East Side Elementary School in Worland welcomes Ken Dietz as their new principal.

Dietz, his wife Melissa and four children are excited to make Worland their new home. "It (Worland) appears to be a community that people enjoy being in. It's a safe town. We really enjoy as a family, the level of safety that our kids have in terms of just being able to go out and ride their bikes and not have to worry about anything. I really think our police department does a great job of that. I notice that their presence is very heavy and I think that that's part of the safety that all of us experience here," Dietz stated.

Dietz and his family moved to Worland from Rock Springs where Dietz was first a teacher, then instructional facilitator, then principal. "I accepted a position as a fourth-grade teacher at Sage Elementary in Rock Springs and after the first year I was asked to apply for an instructional coaching (instructional facilitator)," Dietz said.

Dietz received extensive training to be an instructional facilitator. "They (Rock Springs) send their instructional coaches all over the country to get training. I went to some conferences on professional learning communities, conferences back East for how you lead professional groups in a meeting setting, cooperative learning strategies and also got trained in Las Vegas for different instructional strategies. That year I also became a trainer for write tools and data teams which is a process for analyzing data and determining what instructional strategies need to be used to help kids be successful. It's a pretty long list of training," Dietz said. "It was a great opportunity as far as furthering myself as a professional and in terms of being exposed to different things that can help our kids be successful," he added.

After training Dietz was an instructional facilitator with three schools. "I was assigned to three different elementary schools in Rock Springs as an instructional facilitator, so I worked with Walnut Elementary, Sage Elementary and West Ridge Elementary. That year they also brought in a consulting company, Jackson Consulting, which consults around the country in terms of reading achievement. So I got to do a lot of work around effective reading instruction in classrooms, what that looks like, different strategies that teachers can use to help kids as they are struggling, that kind of thing," Dietz stated.

Dietz than became principal for Wamsutter. "I was the principal for Wamsutter for two years. We had some really exciting things happen when I was out there. The first year, attributed to the teachers, we worked really hard together to increase the student achievement for kids at that K-8 building in Wamsutter. That year we were second in the state for academic growth," Dietz said.

Rock Springs decided to build a new school, Stagecoach Elementary, and the district superintendent transferred Dietz to the new school as principal. "In the second year at Wamsutter, the superintendent transferred me in to open a brand new elementary school in Rock Springs. Stagecoach was a brand new building so we had to go through picking the carpet, everything as well as hiring all the teachers, the paraprofessionals, the lunch staff, the office staff, everybody. I was doing that at the same time that I was running my school in Wamsutter, Dietz said. "That was a great experience as far as exposing me to the whole idea of building a school from nothing," he added.

The size of Stagecoach took away from Dietz what he valued the most about being a principal. "As I went through the year I found out that a school that size, because the school was about the size of East Side, South Side and half of West Side combined. For me the part that I love about being a principal is the kids and knowing the kids, like knowing their faces and talking to them and knowing what's going on in their lives as well as having a staff that I know well. That's what I enjoy about being a principal and I was losing out on that, because that building was so large I wasn't able to have the same level of relationship with the teachers or students that I like to have," Dietz explained.

Dietz began looking for a school where he could once again enjoy the interaction with students and staff and found East Side and Worland to be a perfect fit for himself and his family. "We are very excited to be here and look forward to many years in the community. I feel that this school system is amazing," Dietz stated.