Worland Middle School principal wins district award

WORLAND – Washakie County School District No. 1 Board of Trustees hands out an award for their master teacher of the year at their May meeting each year, but this year it had a little bit of a twist.

Instead of being called the Master Teacher Award, the district decided to name it the Master Educator Award. The award was presented to Worland Middle School Principal Ryan Clark at the school board meeting on Monday, May 25, after a dance was performed by the school board for the audience.

"I did not see any of that coming," Clark said. "The fact that they created that dance here while I was here I was impressed, and they did a good job of keeping that from me."

Clark was given the award for everything that he has done to help the community through the year, and helped keep everyone informed throughout the process of the difficult circumstances that arose after the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) forced schools to shut down in the middle of March.

Clark has been a member of the Washakie County School District No. 1 since 2003, after he graduated from Rocky Mountain College.

"Being a teacher kind of chose me," Clark said. "I originally went to college to become a pilot."

Clark became the WMS principal in August of 2014, and has no intentions of leaving the position anytime soon.

YEAR IN REVIEW

The year started out a little bit differently for Clark, as he and his staff attempted a new traffic flow for the school, in order to help bus traffic and parent traffic flow better and ensure student safety.

The system would see a massive improvement under the advisement of Clark and his staff, as the new traffic flow system helped the middle school see less traffic problems throughout the year.

After that, Clark seemed to have a typical year, helping students learn what it means to be a good person, and ensuring that each student received the proper education that they deserved.

Then, March reared its ugly head.

When schools were forced to shut down on March 16 to help limit the spread of COVID-19, teachers around the state and country were faced with the difficult task of figuring how to teach students through distance learning.

"It has been difficult," Clark said. "The most difficult part for me is that things (guidance) change constantly, maybe even two or three times a day."

Clark tried to find a way to help keep students entertained yet informed about the processes going on through a series of videos posted both to the Worland Middle School Facebook page, and the Worland Middle School Instagram page.

According to Clark, the most popular video that depicts him doing various activities throughout the school in an entertaining manner has accrued over 46,000 views and has reached over 79,000 people.

Clark said that the goofiness of his videos came natural to him, but his main purpose of the videos was so that students and parents alike could see and hear his messages in order to keep them connected with school throughout the closure.

"This building and the staff here is amazing and it is a great big family," Clark said.

LOOKING FORWARD

With the school year ending as difficult as it has, Clark said it has been nice yet difficult to have a limited number of students in school in recent weeks as they have had to follow protocols that were put in place including alternating arrival times, along with temperatures being taken with room coordination, along with constant cleaning and use of bathrooms.

Students coming in have generally been higher risk/needs students, and students are expected to come in throughout the summer.

After having to plan on such short notice to finish the semester online with little to no training, Clark expects the fall semester to be different if they have to transition to online at some point as they expect to have a better developed plan in place by the time school starts in August.

Clark knows that activities both indoors and out are expected to be different this coming fall, but with guidance continually changing it is difficult to predict how the fall semester will go for middle school.

Students coming back is the main thing that Clark is looking forward to in the fall and the energy that the students bring.

"If you could bottle the up the energy of a middle school, we could power the world," Clark said.