Katherine Anne Porter School gets new Superintendent

Sitting in the cafeteria at Katherine Anne Porter School, Michael Hannum scratched at the paint that blotted the table.

“It reminds me of the tables I used to have in art class,” he said with a smile.

That paint-stained table gives a glimpse of the difference that makes KAPS unique.

Over the years, the charter school has developed a reputation for doing things a little bit differently while still maintaining the strong level of success that is expected from schools in Wimberley.

That is what drew Hannum, the newly hired superintendent for Katherine Anne Porter School, to town.

“I see the (standard school) system as doing everything they can to eliminate creativity on the teacher end,” Hannum said. “I looked at the state’s domains for their expectations for teachers and… there is not a lot of room for creativity. But what I loved about Katherine Anne Porter is their scores show that my theory that using creativity as a motivator for learning works. Their STAAR scores are high. That is a testimony to the power of creativity and imagination. Since that is what drives me, that is one of the things that drove me here.”

Hannum may have started as middle school teacher before making his way to assistant principal and principal in Rockport, but that is far from where his journey began.

“I hated school,” Hannum said of his years as a student. “I took the path of least resistance, but I went to college and figured out that education could be a lot more fun than what I was experiencing.”

Hannum said he had no interest in going to college until his art teacher submitted one of his pieces to a scholarship contest without him knowing. He won.

“When I got there I had a totally different experience,” Hannum said. “The art classes were regimented like my high school classes, but my English class I had a teacher that was amazing. When she spoke about literature, I had all these images in my head, and I saw how I could bring the creativity of art into English.”

That creativity stuck around as his life progressed from college studies to teaching. He went back to Rockport, which was his alma mater, and began teaching English in middle school.

“When I came back to my school I noticed students hated reading and writing by the time they got to me,” Hannum said. “ I was teaching middle school. But I know from having my own daughter that they want to know how to read and they want to know how to write before they get into Kindergarten. They can’t wait to do that, so something kills that love in between. I did everything I could to make my class different.”

The first step was removing the desks. Instead, inflatable chairs and couches dotted the room with intermittent pallets of carpet so students could sit on the floor. Next, the students decorated the classroom, often times in ways you wouldn’t find in a standard classroom. Then came the challenge or instilling, or perhaps rediscovering, the want to read.

“Instead of making them adjust their learning styles to what I liked teaching, I adjusted my teaching style to what they liked reading,” Hannum said. “I didn’t care what they read whether it was lyrics or magazines or books, I just adjusted the basic skills you have to know to read and write to what they were doing.”

It worked. Many of the students in his class were considered at-risk, because “that is who I am drawn too, and that is who principals tended to send to me.” His teaching style was successful enough to help him move up the career ladder. First he was asked to be assistant principal before eventually taking over as principal himself.

“When I became principal I did the same thing,” Hannum said. “…I tried to talk teachers into doing some of those things. I had a huge staff and it was hard to get everybody on board. It is a lot of work to keep kids motivated, but the most powerful tool in education is if you can utilize their imagination and tap into their creative potential then they can learn anything. But it involves a lot of work.”

In researching ways to inspire creativity and use it as a tool to teach, Hannum stumbled on to Katherine Anne Porter School. They had a job opening for superintendent.

“I read the original charter, and I know they have evolved a lot to where they are today, but the charter was focused on students who didn’t want to graduate or didn’t want to continue education,” Hannum said. “When I looked at the original charter, I realized I saw myself.”

After the interview process, Hannum accepted the job and began earlier this month as the new superintendent of Katherine Anne Porter School.

“My goal stays the same everywhere I go,” Hannum said. “It is to see every single student reach their potential even if they don’t know what their potential might be. Helping the student figure out what that is and teach them how to capitalize on their own potential.”

Now Hannum has the opportunity to paint his own masterpiece on the canvas of Katherine Anne Porter School.