My name is Mike Kruger and this is my third year as West Fork Superintendent and I am very excited for the 2023-2024 school year.  This year I am starting my 31st year in education. I spent 11 years as an elementary teacher/coach, then 9 years as an elementary principal, before becoming an Associate Supt and Superintendent for 5 years, before starting as the Superintendent of West Fork Schools in the fall of 2019.  I am very passionate about education and want to make sure we do everything we can to make this a great experience for all of our students. We want West Fork to become a destination district, a district that students want to be a part of and parents want to send their students to. We will do that by having high expectations for all of our students and providing a safe learning environment where all of our students can excel and feel like they belong.

I began my administrative career as an elementary principal at SCMT in 2005, which is now part of the West Fork CSD.  Even then there was a lot of sharing between SCMT and Rockwell-Swaledale. So it is exciting for me to return to a district that has so many great things going on.  We have great kids, awesome staff, and a very supportive community. Our facilities are terrific, and if you have not been in the buildings for a while, I would encourage you to give me a call and I would be happy to give you a tour.  As a staff, we are committed to the improvement process, as we want to provide the best educational opportunities for our students. Because of that, we have a 1-hour early dismissal on Wednesday afternoons. This allows for staff professional development opportunities and for valuable time for teachers to collaborate within their Professional Learning Communities.  Our staff has also created a schedule for interventions that we call W.I.N. (What I Need).  This helps us to ensure that all students will have the supports in place to be successful.  This year we are also doing School-Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS). We call this S.O.A.R, which stands for Safe- Outstanding citizens- Accountable- Respectful.  Students are taught the expectations for what it would mean to S.O.A.R in all parts of the building.

Something that was also started in the last couple of years was our work with Portrait of a Graduate.  With that we narrowed down some competencies that we (staff, board, parents, and community) have identified as important for all of our students to have as they graduate from West Fork.  The competencies that we have identified were: Respect, Communicate, Persist, Collaborate, Think Critically, and Adapt.  These competencies are things that we will teach within our regular curriculum and lessons.

We are excited about the great things happening at West Fork and look forward to partnering with all of our students’ parents.  We are all in this together!

Mike Kruger