]Jeff Aman was announced as the new associate principal for curriculum and instruction in an email sent to the faculty.
Aman is moving to Northwest from Orono Senior High School in Orono, Minn. Before serving as an administrator at Orono, Aman was a high school social studies teacher for more than 12 years.
Aman will replace current associate principal for curriculum and instruction Leah Vomhof who will be moving to principal starting in the fall. Vomhof said she was excited about Aman joining the administrative team.
Vomhof said her first impression of Aman was admiration for his positive energy, as well as his knowledge, skill and experiences.
According to Vomhof, Aman’s already confident and calm demeanor will play an important role in his position, having served in the position for a couple years herself. Vomhof said the job, metaphorically, has small and big fires and believes Aman is well equipped to handle them. Specifically, the job focuses primarily on students and staff but it also helps to determine what goes on in classrooms. Vomhof believes Aman will do a good job in this position and will benefit Northwest as a whole.
“Student achievement, student connectedness and belonging all go into post secondary readiness so those are goals for all of us and our new assistant principal, Mr. Aman will support those,” Vomhof said.
Aman said he is looking forward to joining a district that is well-known and praised for excellence.
“The reputation has spread throughout the Midwest and even nationally, so people know ‘oh, that’s a great school district,’ so I’m super excited,” Aman said.
Aman said one of the main reasons he felt compelled to take the job was to be closer to his wife’s family in Kansas City. He said he thinks the move is going to be a big one, but that he believes it will be worth it.
Additionally, Aman said Orono is considerably smaller than Northwest. He said he is coming from a school with under 1,000 students and he is excited to oversee more at Northwest. He said Orono had a similar administrative team with multiple principals, so he feels comfortable coming to the job knowing he will have a team of administrators to work with.
Aman said he is looking forward to meeting and working with more students. He said he is ready to learn and carry on the traditions from Northwest.
“I think it will be really dynamic to consult and plan and problem solve together,” Aman said.
Learning and listening are the priorities Aman said he has coming into his job. He acknowledged that it takes time to acclimate to a new environment; however, he is planning to fully immerse himself in the culture of Northwest.
Aman is looking forward to bringing a perspective outside of Blue Valley and sharing his knowledge and experience with Northwest.
Carys Summers is a senior at Orono High School where Aman is an assistant principal and formerly a teacher. Summers said she got to know Aman well through her role as student body president because of his involvement with her school’s student senate. Summers said her role requires her to run ideas by Aman for activities such as spirit week, and that he has been incredibly receptive and welcoming to her and the student senate’s ideas.
“He makes such a big effort to get to know students. It’s simple things like just saying ‘hi’ to them, smiling at them in the hallways, but then even extends to trying to get to know people more personally,” Summers said.
Elaborating on the student-administrator relationship, Summers said Aman tries to get to know his students well on a personal level. For Summers, that meant Aman taking a personal interest in one of her favorite TV shows, Ted Lasso. Summers and Aman formed a connection from their mutual interest in the show.
“When the new episode would come out, he’d asked me about what I thought about the episode and how the show was going… so it’s just little things like that, where he really tries to get to know students,” Summers said.
Summers said Aman is the type of person who can adjust very quickly and fit in by making connections right away. She said when Aman moved from being a teacher to an administrator, the change was seamless.
“He took on the role, super, super well, and doing new things that year and performing to such a high standard that I really don’t doubt his ability to come to a new school and make the same impression and just make a positive impact,” Summers said.
