Schools

MEA Honors Video Productions Teacher Kevin Walsh

Despite challenges outside the classroom this year, West Bloomfield High School instructor is 'flattered" to be named the 2010-11 Outstanding Person in Education.

In many ways, the 2010-11 school year has been the most difficult of Kevin Walsh’s professional life as he and other West Bloomfield teachers grapple with a contentious teacher contract situation and subsequent pay cut. In other ways, however, it has been his best.

Walsh, who teaches video productions at , has been honored as the year's Outstanding Person in Education, awarded annually by the Michigan Education Association's Lakes Area office, which encompasses West Bloomfield, Walled Lake and South Lyon schools.

Being recognized by his peers, union leadership and retirees was “flattering," Walsh said, adding he was thankful for the opportunity to get to know them better as a result of the award.

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“I think that a lot of the people who gave this award to me are feeling bittersweet as a result of the (recently imposed contract) and that we may have never worked together if we weren’t going through that,” Walsh said. That contract imposition and retroactive pay cut meant Walsh's recent paycheck was 19 percent less than it was when the school year began, he said.

"Many of them came (to the awards program) on Thursday, and it was flattering. I’ve met some retirees who went through preunion days and strikes in the 1970s who said it’s a unifying experience. In that regard, I’ve never felt closer to my colleagues.”

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Walsh’s colleagues seem to feel the same way. Joseph Brandell, mathematics department chairman at West Bloomfield High School, said Walsh makes other teachers’ jobs easier, thanks to his tireless efforts to educate the union and public about issues in and out of the classroom.

“Kevin has developed and produced websites and videos, which have educated not only the West Bloomfield educational community, but also the educational communities in Oakland County and around the state of Michigan,” Brandell, also an education lecturer at Oakland University, wrote in an email. “We are all indebted to Kevin for his vision and his hard work.” 

Walsh, 46, of Royal Oak, graduated from Clawson High School and the University of Notre Dame and earned his master's degree from Oakland University. In 2000, he was hired by West Bloomfield from the Royal Oak school district, where he worked for 13 years, to shape a new curriculum in the video productions department and help design facilities after voters approved a technology bond. He has enjoyed watching the department grow into one in which students who are “not of the traditional 3.5 GPA mold” can feel welcome, he said.

Former students such as Brandon Jackson, a 2004 graduate who recently co-starred with actor/comedian Martin Lawrence in the nationally released film Big Momma’s House 3, often stop by to visit with his class.

“The amazing thing about Kevin is that he’s supportive of all the students,” said Jason Potash, 25, who won the Student Visionary Award at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival for the short film he produced, Some Boys Don’t Leave. "He gives them a place to expand on what they already offer. He gave me that environment, and he continues to give it. I graduated years ago, but whenever I come into town, he makes the facilities available, and that’s a huge resource.”

Although neither the MEA award nor the contract imposition has — or ever will — affect his approach in the classroom, Walsh said, he has a new undertaking in response to Gov. Rick Snyder’s proposed budget, which calls for a $470 cut in per-pupil funding in the 2011-12 school year. Video productions at WBHS could face cuts as a direct response, and the West Bloomfield Education Association is active in protesting Snyder's budget, Walsh said.

“There a certain ‘circle the wagons’ mentality, and the smaller things, you tend to forget,” he said.


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