Trapper Creek Elementary School has new principal

Allison Wall is the new principal at Trapper Creek Elementary School starting this school year. Wall is a native of New York state and has been in Alaska for 12 years. She worked as a teacher for one year in Anderson for the Denali School district. Since the year 2000 she has worked for the Mat-Su Borough starting as a special education teacher in Big Lake and most recently as a No-Child-Left-Behind coordinator for the school district.

Wall said that while she has not held a principal’s position, she has filled in as the acting principal of Willow Elementary.

Wall is going to teach kindergarten through 2nd grade. She said that the teaching principal position is her idea of a perfect job. It combines teaching and being with the kids and at the same time, it would allow her to spread her wings and assume administrative responsibilities.

Asked how she ended up in Alaska, Wall said that she fell in love with the place during a layover stop en route to a teaching job in Taiwan. She and her husband came back in 1998 and she landed a teaching position in Anderson.

The 39-year old mother of two children said she considers Alaska the ultimate place to live.

Her goals as a teaching principal at Trapper Creek are to establish relationships with families and community members and to increase community involvement in school.

She said, for now, she’ll be commuting between her Big Lake home and Trapper Creek.