August 24th was not only the first day of school for returning sophomores, juniors, and seniors to Ames High, but for Ames High’s new principal, Dr. Paul Numedahl, as well. Numedahl is transferring from Humboldt High School in North-Central Iowa, where he served as principal for three years. His appointment comes after three different successive principals at Ames High in the past two years.
Numedahl acknowledges the need for stability at the high school. “I’m not going anywhere, I’m going to be here for a while,” he said.
This year Numedahl hopes to foster connectivity between students and administration in order to combat Ames High’s past two years of occasional disruptive and challenging behavior.
“There’s no magic bullet,” he said. “But what I can tell you is I want to help model right to the best of my ability, how to make connections with folks right. I think at the crux of helping…the disruptive issues that happened, it’s all about relationships with students and having that sense of belonging, [knowing] that you belong to something big.”
In addition, Numedahl also plans to tackle the challenges faced by Ames High following the pandemic, namely a notable decline in test scores that left Ames High marked as underachieving last year. With a master’s in curriculum assessment, teacher development, and instructional leadership, Numedahl is keen to implement structural curricular changes.
His plans include MTSS, short for multi-tiered systems of support, a program already introduced in Iowa for a number of years but new to Ames High, and the Danielson Framework for teaching, already in place at the high school. MTSS builds intervention time into class, creating “tiers” of different levels of instruction. The Danielson Framework separates teaching into four different domains, and is taught to teachers through instructional coaches. Numedahl believes that more key structural changes will come with time as he learns to better understand the school and its needs.
“The hard part of being an administrator is you just don’t come in with all these ideas and say we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that. Because I don’t know the community,” he explained.
Numedahl is clear that he is “an administrator that has the best interest out for students.” Originally Numedahl pursued biology, but made the switch to education because he “loved the science of teaching.”
“I wouldn’t be in this job if I didn’t like working with teenagers…Some of the off-the-wall wacky ideas that some folks come up with, I just find that refreshing,” he said.
