News from the Western 1 Region
Denise Trakas, Western 1 Regional Director
Winter 2019/2020

Spotlight on a Leader in Western 1:

Barbara Griffin is the Director of K-12 Mathematics for Clark County School District, one of the largest districts in the United States. This month, we are Spotlighting Barbara and sharing a piece of her NCSM story.

Attending the NCSM Annual Conference has given me the opportunity to connect with other leaders of mathematics from around the country and build my professional network. Talking with, sharing, and learning alongside others who share the same vision and passion empowers me to go back to my district and continue the work that will impact teachers and students. It also helps me see things from different perspectives so that I can work with my team to come up with creative ways to provide support and professional learning to teachers. I always walk away with powerful resources, strategies, and ideas that help me improve mathematics teaching and learning in my district. I make it a priority to attend the NCSM Annual Conference because it is a professional learning experience that provides me with so much as an instructional leader in my district. Knowing how much I gain from attending inspires me to provide that same type of experience to the teachers in my district by giving them the opportunity to collaborate with their peers to learn and make meaning of the mathematics that they must teach, to learn new and innovative instructional approaches, and to build a professional network that they can rely on to continue learning and growing as professionals.

Barbara Griffin, Nevada, Director, K-12 Mathematics, Clark County School District
Type of leader: administrator

Use the NCSM Memberclicks profile page (on the website) to connect with Barbara!

Regional Visits:
Idaho Regional Team Leader, Cory Bennet and Regional Director, Denise Trakas attended the NCTM Regional in Salt Lake City Utah. We had the pleasure of meeting several members from the Western Region in addition to members from other regions.

Denise also visited Alaska for the State cross content area conference. I had the pleasure of meeting several NCSM members and leaders. Please join me in welcoming Luke McDonald to NCSM! Luke was introduced to NCSM from long-time member Bobbi Jo Erb.

Current Regional Membership: Unavailable at the time of this report.
New to NCSM? Please feel free to reach out to your regional team leader to connect and learn about the organizations, resources and opportunities to get involved.

Regional Team Leaders:

Alaska: Samantha Wuttig
Email:

Arizona: Kimberly Rimbey
Email:

Colorado: Kelly Shank Slavik
Email:

Idaho: Cory Bennett
Email:

Montana: Lisa Scott
Email:

Nevada: Lynn Trell
Email:

Utah: Shannon Olson
Email:

We are looking for regional team leaders for New Mexico and Wyoming. Please reach out to Denise Trakas if you might be interested!

Upcoming events:

NCSM Annual Meeting:
Connect. Collaborate. Commit. Moving Math Leadership into the New Decade.


March 30 – April 1, 2020
Hyatt Regency Chicago
151 E. Wacker
Chicago, Illinois
Consider being a volunteer, a great way to connect and collaborate!