Meet Gary Puhl, Riverside Intermediate School’s new principal!
Gary Puhl is pictured with his wife, currently a behavioral health nurse in Novi, and their creative three-year-old twin girls that keep them pretty busy.
Multiple building configuration changes have happened recently in the Manchester Community School District. This school year the Manchester Middle School building sat empty for a year as 5th & 6th graders were incorporated into Klager elementary. Seventh and eighth graders were incorporated into the High School building, which was renamed the Manchester Middle and High School. Changes are happening again for the next school year as the district’s Early Childhood Center (preschool) is moving from the Ackerson building into Klager, and 3rd through 6th grade is moving from Klager into the vacant Middle School building. The building has been renamed Riverside Intermediate School by the students who will be attending it. Gary Puhl, an administrator new to the district who this year worked as both the district’s special education administrator and as an administrator for the 7th & 8th graders within the High School, will serve as Riverside’s building principal.
Puhl, who commutes into Manchester from the Westland/Canton border where he lives with his family, received his Bachelor of Arts from The University of Michigan in Elementary K-8 (self-contained)/6-8 Social Studies/K-12 Learning Disabilities. He then received his Master of Arts from Grand Valley State University in Educational Leadership with an emphasis in Special Education Administration. He has been accepted into the Doctor of Education program at Central Michigan University and plans to start this fall.
Before coming to Manchester, Puhl held a multitude of positions. A few years after beginning college, he took on a job as a para-professional for a sixth-grade student with high needs. Once he had enough credits, he transitioned to a substitute teacher for the downriver area. Upon graduation, he landed a job as a middle school special education teacher on the east side of Detroit and was eventually assigned a dual role of data/instructional coach and special education teacher. Soon after, he transitioned to Dexter Community Schools, where he held a position as a 5/6 grade resource room teacher.
Puhl has always enjoyed working with kids in one way or another. He attended Halecreek Elementary School in Romulus (which was a K-6th school). In sixth grade, he was a “buddy” for a kindergartner each day during lunch. This held true for him into high school and beyond. What ultimately made him choose special education as his major focus comes from growing up with a brother on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Puhl stated, “Helping make sure each student is afforded an appropriate education regardless of sociodemographic factors is something I still remain focused on to this day.”
Next year in addition to his role as building principal, Puhl will continue in his role as the district’s special education administrator. He acknowledges that serving the districts in both capacities will require a balance. “It is all about balancing the roles and making sure the needs of the students come first,” he said. “Formulating a strong team, equipped with teacher leaders, will help to make the balancing of the two jobs that much easier.”
There are challenges in opening a 3rd-6th grade school in the vacant Middle School building. Puhl explained, “At this point, if we take away the obvious challenging factors (moving furniture, relocation of staff, etc.), I feel like the biggest challenge we face at this point is making sure the fine little details are set. Right now, working on building a schedule for a brand new building is proving to be the most challenging of those finer details.” While Klager operates on trimesters, Riverside will operate on quarters/semesters like the Middle and High School. The old Middle School building has locks on the lockers. These locks will be left on lockers for 5th & 6th graders and removed for the 3rd & 4th graders.
Puhl explained that this move is a unique opportunity as well. “The option to make Riverside exactly how we want it, down to those finer details of a unique schedule, is definitely a unique opportunity not afforded to a lot of schools.” He’d really like to see a peer-to-peer program take off at some point. But the biggest innovation for Riverside will be the introduction of project-based learning.
According to the Buck Institute for Education, through project based learning, “Students work on a project over an extended period of time – from a week up to a semester – that engages them in solving a real-world problem or answering a complex question. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by developing a public product or presentation for a real audience. As a result, students develop deep content knowledge as well as critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills in the context of doing an authentic, meaningful project. Project Based Learning unleashes a contagious, creative energy among students and teachers.”
Puhl sees student choice and creativity as the most important aspects of project based learning. He explained ,”Project-based learning has been around in some fashion since I was in grade school, but now it has a bigger and better emphasis on those “soft skills” (collaboration, teamwork, presentation skills, work ethic, self-confidence, etc.) for the next generation of 21st–century learners.” Because the new Riverside staff is currently with students until the end of the school year, it makes it difficult to plan an entire year of quality project-based plans before the start of school in September. The hope is to introduce project-based learning gradually in the first year. Puhl is currently working on the basics of a strategic plan for how he sees Riverside evolving.
Riverside’s educators will all be trained in project based learning. “This is probably the most exciting part to talk about,” Puhl stated, “All new Riverside teachers, including special education and electives teachers, have been given an opportunity to attend a project-based learning (PBL) training this summer. We currently have a representative from each grade and an administrator attending the Buck Institute PBL Training in Columbus, Ohio paid for entirely with Title IV funds. Three teachers will be attending Project Lead the Way Training at Eastern Michigan University paid for entirely with Title IIa funds. Six teachers will be attending the CBD-lead PBL training in Grand Blanc with registration and accommodations being paid for by the foundation grant of CBD. The only cost to the district for these trainings will come in the form of a stipend and mileage reimbursement for these six teachers. That’s full training for 14 staff members this summer!”
As the 7th & 8th grade administrator this year, Puhl was in a unique position to observe the integration of the 7th & 8th graders into the high school. “Not knowing how the 7th & 8th graders were in past years,” he stated, “I would say that the move went well. Coming into the district at the tail end of August, I didn’t have much time to ask those questions before the students came in. I am sort of glad that I didn’t have the time, in that I was able to see the students through an entirely new lens. I have only ever seen positive interactions between the middle and high school students.” The 7th & 8th grade administrator position will be filled next year by the athletic director, an open position which will be filled by the district shortly.
How does Puhl feel about the Manchester School district near the close of his first school year here? “I absolutely embrace the community feel of the schools and they have always been there to help whenever I need it. The focus is never off the students and I love that about MCS,” he stated. While Manchester Community Schools has faced a changing educational landscape over the last few years, that is also true for educators across the state of Michigan. Puhl’s attitude toward the change is applicable to both the state and local: “Education is ever-changing. The way I see it, you have two avenues when the change occurs: bow out or embrace the changes and make them truly unique to your style of education.”
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