Colony High math teacher tapped for state post

PALMER — If student success and teacher success are the x and y axis, then trust is the center point they extend from.

When longtime Mat-Su Borough School District math teacher Bob Williams talks about methods he’s used over the years to boost success in education, he keeps coming back to trust.

“If we have increased levels of trust with parents, students and the community, there’s a lot that can happen,” Williams said.

On Jan. 20, he got the call from Alaska Department of Education & Early Development Commissioner Michael Johnson, who said he wanted Williams for the new Director of Education and School Excellence.

“I love what I do every day in the classroom as a teacher,” Williams said. “As a teacher, I never wake up wondering if I made a difference. I know I’ve made a difference.”

But he said he also knew he wanted to bring that dedication to the position he was called to. As director of education and school excellence, he’ll oversee such things as professional development and school improvement. The goals of the department, he said, are to “improve student learning, ensure excellence, develop partnerships with tribes, and promote safety and well-being.”

Williams said he’s incorporated somewhat quirky elements into classroom learning during his 23 years with the school district – any current or former student of his will remember his math-learning cheers. The chants with motions often seem silly to students at first, he said, but later, they realize it’s helped them keep essential math concepts in their long-term memories.

Those chants have helped him guide students through the changes made to math curriculum under the new Common Core-aligned Alaska standards.

He said the new standards made the math content more challenging, with many concepts previously introduced at the ninth-grade level being introduced a year earlier.

“The math we’re doing is a bit more difficult,” he said. But successfully navigating the changes goes back to the same principles he’s developed as a math teacher pre-Common Core.

“Trying to build positive relationships with students” is the key.

Williams was born and raised in Palmer, graduated from Palmer High School, and earned his degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

But when he graduated, the bottom had dropped out of oil prices. Williams said he remembers it went from about $30 per barrel down to $9.

With no oil jobs to be had in Alaska, Williams signed up for the Peace Corps, teaching for a couple years in Africa. That’s when he realized he loved teaching.

After teaching math for three years in Nome, he moved back to the Valley, and has taught here ever since. He spent seven years teaching at Palmer High, three at Houston High, and the last 11 at Colony.

His students surprised him on his last day by making a “pi” cake – and making a video of each of them telling him about the difference he’d made in their lives.

“A lot of teachers don’t realize the impact they’ve had,” he said.

You could include Williams in that set.

“I’m not one who tears up easily,” he said. “But when they showed the video, it’s a good thing it was dark, because my eyes welled up.”

Williams said he will serve at the pleasure of the commissioner in his new capacity for as long as he is needed.