Zeman works to unify Elk River High School

Homecoming is early this year for Elk River High School, and that suits the school’s new principal just fine.

Ever since Mike Zeman took over for Principal Terry Bizal, the school’s leader for the last 17 years, he has been laser focused on unifying the different groups at the school.

Work on the initiative started this past summer with a group of teachers who volunteered to come in one August day to work on a mission and vision to dovetail with the Elk River Area School District’s mission and vision. They spent an entire day coming up with a mission statement, picking apart every word to come up with something they could get behind.

The effort kicked into a higher gear when school opened on Sept. 3, and students were hit with it as soon as they came through the front office. The entire office staff was wearing bright red Elk River Elks T-shirts with the mission on the back. It reads: To provide experiences which create happy, confident, prepared, and productive people.

And if Zeman has his way, unification efforts will be on full display on the night of Friday, Sept. 20, at Elk River High School’s Homecoming football game. The day will include a raucous pep fest in the afternoon at the high school, a parade down School Street, and the big game featuring powerhouse football programs from Elk River and Andover who have both been ranked as high as No. 1 in the state AAAAA rankings this year. The game will be followed by the first Homecoming dance in years.

“I want the community to wear red to the Homecoming game,” he said. “I think if we can present as a student body and as a community by having everyone wear red, I think that would be really cool to red out those bleachers. We’re Elks. We wear red. That’s a big deal.”

It’s a message students have heard in class meetings inside the Zabee Theater, where freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors each had a session.

“I got our whole administrative team out in front of all the students,” Zeman said. “We talked about mission, vision and we talked about our why.

“My why is to do the impossible. I like to meet kids and get them dreaming and get their goals out on the table and figure out how we can get from Point A to Point B and how I can help.”

The married man and father of two sons who attend VandenBerge Middle School said he was drawn to the job at Elk River High School because it’s the community where he lives. Not only is it in the community he lives in, but he knows the community supports education as demonstrated by the facilities, classroom experiences and extra-curriculars.

Zeman is the son of a retired media specialist and retired paraprofessional. The Albert Lea native wasn’t of a mind to follow in his parents’ footsteps upon graduation from high school. He knew early on he wanted to coach, and he did.

But it wasn’t until he had a job working in insurance that he decided at 28 to go back to school at Minnesota State University-Mankato to become a teacher. He got a job at a tiny school district of Glenville Emmons. The district was so small, the superintendent there was an elementary school principal at Glenville Emmons Elementary School. The graduating classes were less than 30.

Zeman worked there during the day and took classes at night to complete his degree. He coached football, basketball and track, something he’s done for 27 years in all.

Former Rogers High School Principal Roman Pierskalla hired Zeman in 2008 to be an English teacher. He also got him in on the ground floor of the AVID program. He sent him to training in the summer of 2009, and a group that included Zeman worked on implementation during the 2009-2010 school year. They rolled out the program the following year.

“I worked with Tom Kish and Barry Hohlen,” Zeman said. “We were the first three teachers of it. We did a lot with building it and it is now district-wide.”

Pierskalla did more than nudge Zeman toward administration. “He basically said, ‘You need to go and get your administrative licensure,’” Zeman recalled.

He did just that, and in 2014 Rogers High School Principal Jason Paurus hired him to be an assistant principal at RHS. He did that until 2022 when he became head principal at VandenBerge Middle School.

Now, at Elk River High School, he’s in charge of a small city with 2,000 people coming and going on any given day and with another 2,500 or so on big game nights in the football stadium, gym or Furniture and Things Community Event Center.

“I love being around students, especially high school students, that’s kind of my wheelhouse,” he said. “Seniors are probably my favorite. If I can, I can spend my days talking to kids. That’s a great day.”

There are more than 1,650 students at Elk River High School.

“We want them to be the best version of themselves every day,” Zeman said. “To be happy, confident, prepared and productive, and getting them to see who they can be. What that is for every person is different. Every Monday of the month is different from Friday. The first day of school is different from the middle of January.”

“For staff that means meeting students where they are at and getting students to understand that we have a staff that really cares deeply about them and does a lot to support them.”

That’s in the front office, in the lunchroom, the counseling offices, classrooms throughout the A, B and C wings and everywhere else inside the sprawling rambler that is Elk River High School.

“My biggest thing is unifying our community and continuing to have Elk River High School be the kind of thing the community points to with pride saying, ‘My student graduated from Elk River High School and that was a big deal.”