This article originally appeared in the Allegan County News and has been republished with permission. If you are an Allegan Public Schools graduate and would like to be featured in an article, contact our Communications Director.
By LESLIE BALLARD
Allegan County News
Chris Chopp vividly remembers where he was in the fall after graduating from Allegan High School in 2001.
“I was a freshman at Indiana Wesleyan University when the ground underneath our feet disappeared on 9/11.” Although only a few hours away from home on the campus between Fort Wayne and
Indianapolis, he wished he were with family that day.
However, “Indiana Wesleyan was the right place for me,” and he earned a BA in biology and secondary education.
More importantly, “I met my wife there!” His wife Amy earned her degree in elementary education.
“I’ve always loved math and science and like being outside. I remember hiking with my parents and grandparents, experiencing the wonder of the world from a young age.”
Working at Camp Beechpoint in the summers during college “got me excited about working with youth, especially urban youth,” and Chris had the opportunity to continue that when he student taught at Arsenal Technical High School and H.L. Harshman Middle School, which are part of the Indianapolis Public Schools. “It was a challenging experience with a revolving door of students,” he recalls noting the high levels of truancy, absenteeism and mobility.
That didn’t deter him from another tough assignment: teaching in New York City, the largest school district in the United States.
His first day wasn’t what he expected. When he walked into the office, the principal informed him that he would be the earth science teacher instead of the biology position he had been hired for. He survived that year and was assigned the Bio Chemistry classes. Chris says it sounds better than it was, which combined remedial biology with introduction to chemistry.
His experiences with the administrative team at Pace High School increased his interest in becoming an administrator himself. They were exact opposite of each other in terms of their personalities but both were “good to work with, incredibly intelligent and cared about the kids, finding innovative ways to help them.”
While Chris enjoyed the camaraderie with his fellow teachers and the “supportive school community,” he compares teaching in an urban school to dog years – every year seems like seven.
During this time, he earned his Master’s in Educational Leadership and Administration from Baruch College.
In his fourth year of teaching, he became part of the Columbia University Teachers College Research Experience for Teachers (RET) spending two summers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory dendrochronology lab working alongside scientists and learning how to transfer this scientific research into the classroom.
Amy decided to leave elementary education to become a speech language pathologist. Western Michigan University had a good program and they decided to leave NYC and move back to start a family where they would be close to both families.
“Being a scholar-athlete was a big part of my experience in Allegan,” Chris recalls. He was senior class president as well as captain of the soccer and wresting teams and went to the state wresting competition his senior year. While he sees Tom Smythe and Cindy Eichbauer as having inspired him, he also gained a great deal from being part of the Peer Assistance and Leadership group with Art Ziemelis and Melissa Ellis.
Upon his return to the area, Chris worked as a part-time science coach at AHS during which time he tutored students and helped support teachers. “It was a treat and a privilege to get to work with math coach Janice Olsen and the rest of the faculty.”
He then landed a job at the Kalamazoo Math & Science Center where he was able to teach the top students in the county in AP Biology, Honors Biology and Microbiology classes and serving as a research mentor.
He was able to continue his work with RET for another project, this time spending a month in a research lab in Queensland, Australia studying algal biofuel as an alternative energy source. “It was an unbelievable experience, and I was able to bring back that research to Kalamazoo so my students could experience it, too.”
He and Amy got to see quite a bit of Australia, visiting Sydney, snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef and encountering wallabies and giant fruit bats on camping trips.
In 2015. Chris became the first full-time principal at the Comstock STEM Academy, which serves students in grade K-8. Under his leadership the selective school has transitioned from 100 students and 10 staff to 270 students and 20 staff. He obviously loves his job, especially supporting and nurturing a high quality staff, providing real world applications of problem solving and developing innovative
programming. “It’s powerful!”
In 2022 Chris was honored to receive a Regional Principal’s Award from the Michigan Elementary and Middle School Principal’s Association.
He’s proud the students’ achievements, including qualifying 3 out of 5 years for the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow nationwide competition and earning the school over $30,000 in equipment and supplies.
“Being my daughter’s principal has also been special,” he reports. Evelyn, age 8, is in 2nd grade. His son Cole is five and attends Nature’s Way.
Chris is nearly finished with his Ed.D. in Leadership and Learning in Organizations at Vanderbilt University. This is a hybrid online program with on campus meetings three times through the course of the three-year program. His capstone project will be completed this summer and deals with combining learning theory, organization theory and leadership theory to resolve persistent organizational problems.
He is also Journal Editor of the Michigan Science Teacher’s Association Journal.
It is understandable that he doesn’t have much spare time for hobbies or other interests these days although he does have a starter of sourdough in his office, a legacy of the time when he could indulge his interest in cooking and baking.
He and Amy hope to get back to traveling as the children get older, having enjoyed trips to Norway, Spain, Alaska and Hawaii.
