Activity leader Alan Szech has wandered …

While it’s possible that Alan attended as many Phish shows in the late 90s as he did classes, he graduated with a BA in Business; a year later he was substitute teaching in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he moved to play in a rock band. Noting his skills with and affinity for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, the district hired him full-time and helped to pay for his MA in Special Education. Eventually leaving the classroom at age 32, he entered the world of administration, managing the implementation of reading, writing, and math interventions for a Colorado school district of more than 50 schools, while concurrently completing his Principal’s License. Instead of staying in Colorado to principal, he moved to Seattle in 2013 and served as Director of Admissions at Morningside Academy for five years. In December of 2022, Alan returned to Colorado to teach English to at-risk students at Durango High School.

Alan is an avid reader, a jack of all trades, and a master of a couple. He is an accomplished singer, instrumentalist, and songwriter; as well as a writer of novels, memoirs, articles, and essays; and a burgeoning filmmaker. While he enjoys team sports, he was a woefully undersized boy regularly pummeled on every field and court, thus gravitated to running, bicycling, snowboarding, and frisbee: hippie stuff.

An occasional adrenaline-junkie who has climbed volcanoes in Guatemala and hiked with grizzly bears in Alaska, he has always preferred to “wander.” As a child, he spent hours gazing into Illinois ponds, searching for crayfish and tadpoles; in Washington, he still can’t get over the trees. When he returns to the Midwest to visit family, he spends hours gazing into Illinois ponds, searching for crayfish and tadpoles.

While a Seattle-lover, Alan feels most at-home on the Olympic Peninsula where, at any time of year, he can be found camped in his Winnebago somewhere between Lake Crescent and Kalaloch Beach. (You guessed it: wandering…)

Education
- Principal Licensure – 2012 – CSU, Colorado
- M.A., Special Education – 2006 – UNC, Colorado
- B.A., Business Administration – 1999 – U of I, Iowa

Experience
- English Teacher (9-12), 2022 - present, Durango High School, Durango, CO
- Director of Admissions (K-9), 2013 - 2018, Morningside Academy, Seattle, WA
- Principal Intern (PK-5), 2011-2012, Alpine Elementary, Longmont, CO
- Academic Intervention Coordinator (K-12), 2009-2012, Longmont, CO
- Special Education Teacher / Case Manager (K-12), 2003-2009, Fort Collins, CO
- Homebound Teacher (K-12), 2001-2003, Fort Collins, CO