Incoming Bayfield High School Principal Jason Wayman was raised in southwest Colorado and is very familiar with the Bayfield school district and this region.
“He brings many years of school leadership experience to our team, and we are looking forward to a bright future under the leadership of Dr. Wayman at Bayfield High School,” BSD Superintendent Leon Hanhardt said.
Wayman said he is eager to return to the region after spending the past 5 years in New Mexico, where he served as Director of Instruction for McKinley County Schools in Gallup.
“I was born and raised in Cortez, and this is an opportunity to move closer to family,” said Wayman, who began his education career in Cortez as a middle school math teacher. He then became the elementary principal and preschool director there before taking the reins at Montezuma-Cortez High School — a post he held for 7 years. For the past half of a decade, he has been overseeing the instructional efforts at 8 to 11 schools in Gallup and also spearheading family engagement for the district.
“I’ve been helping the schools work on parental engagement through student centered conversations and teachers reaching out to build relationships with families” Wayman reported.
While he is looking forward to his return to Southwest Colorado, the new BHS principal is just as excited to be working in a building full of students again and eager to embrace the culture that his new home offers.
“It will be fun to get back to the kid level,” Wayman said. “I always loved the team spirit that Bayfield had, the parental support and community buy-in. I enjoyed that, I am excited to be part of the community.”
He believes that culture makes it easier for students and teachers to succeed, and he expressed a desire to foster continued growth in the environment Bayfield offers.
“My knowledge of the district and your mission to provide a culture that looks to “Each Student, Each Day: Wolverine Way” demonstrates the type of district and team I would be honored to join. I believe the strong emphasis on relationships and connections will power strong learning in the classrooms,” he reasoned.
Wayman admires a lot of what is already being done at BHS and admits that one of his first challenges will be to determine where his talents can be applied to provide the most support to an endeavor that is already succeeding on a number of levels.
“I want to have trust in the people there and bring some of my knowledge to the table alongside them. I’m walking into a school district that has had a ton of success, so it is a fine balance between what I know works and what has already been working at the high school,” Wayman said. “I need to find what areas I can help in and what areas are running well that I can just help keep running well.”
Wayman is approaching the transition with confidence, and that is in part because he has enjoyed a productive working relationship with the Bayfield superintendent that dates back to when they were both high school principals in their respective southwest Colorado communities a decade ago.
“I’ve worked with Mr. Hanhardt in the past, and we would collaborate a lot in my years as principal,” Wayman reported. “We were both in charge of top 100 high schools and driving each other, so I have a lot of trust in him and what he does.”
District leaders in Bayfield are expressing an equal level of confidence and belief in Wayman.
“It is with great excitement that I am able to announce that Jason Wayman is the new leader of Bayfield High School,” Hanhardt told his staff last week.
“If you would have told me we were going to go into next year with Jason Wayman on our team, I would have had a hard time believing it,” Assistant Superintendent Bill Hesford agreed. “He is a veteran leader in education who was being strongly considered for multiple superintendent positions, and to land him as our next high school principal is a huge win for our students and staff.”