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After four years at the Aspen School District and 35 years in education, Aspen Middle School Principal Amy Kendziorski will retire at the end of the academic year.
Throughout her career, Kendziorski has worked as both an educator and administrator. She came to ASD in 2021 as the district was navigating its way through the COVID-19 pandemic and as the middle school was implementing its International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme curriculum.
Now, after a successful IB program authorization and emergence from the pandemic, Kendziorski is ready to close the door on a long career in public education.
“The last four years have been reestablishing the new normal of school post-pandemic, helping kids make up for lost learning, helping teachers get back into the groove of school with different children, because kids are different,” she said. “COVID certainly had an impact on their social development and their academic development, so that part’s been fascinating, but I feel like we’re in a good place now.
“This is year 35, it’s been 35 years in public education for me … so now it’s time to pass the torch to the next group of individuals who want to lead the school,” she added.
Kendziorski came to ASD from the Eagle County School District, where she served as the executive director of student services.
She earned a degree in special education at the University of Wisconsin and taught for 11 years at elementary, middle and high school levels in Hawaii, California, Wyoming and Colorado. For 13 years, Kendziorski worked for the Durango School District in several educational and administrative roles, focusing on work with students with disabilities. She received a master’s degree in education leadership.
“I went into school administration with the intent of making schools better for all kids and having an influence that was bigger than my classroom,” she said.
After working in Durango, she spent five years in the administration of Waimea Middle School in Hawaii.
Though she’s worked with students of all ages in both an educator and administrative role, Kendziorski has a special appreciation for middle school students.
“Middle schoolers are so much fun. They come in as children and leave as young adults … and watching that development is amazing,” she said. “Kids grow as fast during middle school as they did from (ages) zero to two in terms of their cognitive skills, their body, their social and emotional wellness, and when you set kids up on a trajectory of success in middle school, high school’s a breeze and life is good. So that’s my goal.”
When Kendziorski joined AMS, the school was in the middle of pursuing authorization for its IB MYP curriculum. IB authorization requires several years of implementation and visits from IB officials to review the school’s implementation.
The school was just beginning to integrate the IB curriculum in 2021 when Kendziorski became principal. AMS received official IB authorization in 2023.
“I think it was fabulous that the idea had been planted, and we needed to do the work around authorization,” Kendziorski said. “IB is the best thing, to me, that could have happened in terms of alignment of the district.”
Aspen High School received IB authorization for its Diploma Programme in 2001. Aspen Elementary School received IB authorization for its Primary Years Programme this spring, making ASD the only fully IB district in Colorado.
ASD Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry said Kendziorski’s leadership was exactly what the middle school needed as the district was enduring curriculum changes, pandemic disruptions and periods of high turnover.
“I am just so pleased that we had somebody of her experience and caliber to lead us at that time with COVID, because we’d had a pretty fractured leadership at the middle school,” Mulberry said. “There had been a historic amount of turnover, and she was able to come in and really pull all those ends together and make the school not only functioning but also thriving through the remaining COVID years and then also just pushing our district initiative work around IB and MYP and creating the teams there that made that a success.”
Mulberry was assistant superintendent of ASD when Kendziorski was hired.
“Her passion for students with disabilities is absolutely unparalleled, she is somebody who always speaks for those who can’t speak for themselves, and it’s just a quality I really appreciate,” he said.
AMS Assistant Principal Julie Ramey, who was hired at the same time as Kendziorski, lauded Kendziorski’s leadership as a principal.
“She’s brought a lot of expertise and just knowledge about being a school administrator and what those responsibilities entail, and I feel like we’ve become a family over the last three and a half years,” Ramey said.
Kendziorski will retire at the end of the 2024-25 academic year. The district opened a job listing for AMS principal on Dec. 20 that will be open until Jan. 12. Mulberry said the district hopes to choose a candidate by February or March.
“I’ve been in school since I was 5 years old, so for once not being on a school schedule will be delightful,” Kendziorski said.
Nearly every day, Kendziorski walks from her office to the AMS lunchroom to talk with students outside of the classroom. Amid a lunchroom of fifth- and sixth-grade students who were antsy to start winter break, she said she will miss interacting with her students most of all.
“Helping kids make better choices, understanding their mistakes, learning from them, growing from them, and supporting families in adolescent development … I’d do those parts of my job any day,” she said.