Schools

The Hammer

'I want Baldwin to be good at everything.' - Mike Voelker, dean of students, Harrison Middle School

Just call him "The Hammer."

While his friends growing up may have known him as "The Bull," Mike Voelker is now the hammer of discipline at Baldwin-Whitehall's . That's Dean of Students to be exact. 

Voelker, who can best be described as having purple-and-white blood in his veins, became J.E. Harrison's dean in October 2010, and so far, he's loved every minute of it.

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While it's not the disciplining of students that Voelker particularly loves, it is something that he's good at—and has experience in.

Prior to returning to the —he's a 2001 graduate—he worked in the nearby Brentwood Borough School District, specializing in monitoring the in-school suspension room at Brentwood Middle School. He also served in that capacity at Baldwin High.

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"I forced them (punished students) to do their work," Voelker says. "I was that mean guy, like the warden, for lack of a better term."

Some educators might balk at that duty, but Voelker saw it as an opportunity to make a lasting mark on students.

"I built relationships with those kids. I could reach those kids. I wasn't, like, giving them things—they were down there for a reason; they were down there to be punished—but I could build relationships with them and have an effect on them.

"It's kind of like what I do here (at Harrison)."

When Michael R. Wetmiller became Harrison's interim principal in October 2010 after former principal Rachel Gray resigned earlier that month, a void was created in the school's administration. Harrison formerly had two vice principals—Wetmiller and Scott Ross—so with the promotion of Wetmiller, Voelker was brought in to handle discipline, freeing Wetmiller and Ross up to oversee teaching and curriculum.

"They brought me in just to concentrate on the discipline," Voelker says. "That was the focus, because it's a tough age for students.

"(Before,) it was always a principal and two vice principals, and they kind of split discipline between them. They just split the alphabet. Since I don't have my principal's certificate, I can't observe teachers. I can't really do anything with curriculum. My sole focus is the kids: making sure that the classroom environment isn't being disrupted, making sure that the school is safe, and also, having interventions with kids.

"Math teachers are teaching them math. Social studies teachers are teaching them social studies. I'm really teaching them about life—what's right, what's wrong, and basically, holding them accountable for their actions.

"All middle-school kids really want is someone who's going to be fair and consistent. It's natural for them to push their boundaries."

The Baldwin-Whitehall School Board removed Wetmiller's interim tag , and earlier this month, approved a salary adjustment for Voelker that compensates him as a 12-month administrator instead of as a nine-month teacher, beginning July 1, this year.

"They (district administration) gave me an excellent opportunity, and Mike (Wetmiller) recommended me. Whenever he went from interim principal to permanent principal, they asked him if he liked this setup (Voelker as Dean) ... and he did."

Voelker's administrator status is something that he appreciates, and it sets him up to remain in Baldwin-Whitehall for the long haul. 

He grew up on Jill Drive in and still calls Whitehall home. He attended Baldwin-Whitehall's public schools all through high school, including three years at Harrison.

Voelker sees the middle school as "the melting pot" of Baldwin-Whitehall, the place that students from all over the district—including north , south Baldwin Borough, Whitehall Borough and —get together for the first time.

It's truly at Harrison that students get to be taught about and see "the Baldwin way," Voelker says.

"When you come to Harrison," he says, "it sets the tone for Baldwin High School. We try to tell them (the students), 'You guys are going to go to school together for the next seven years. You guys are each other. You guys are Baldwin. You guys aren't and elementary (schools) anymore. You guys are all Baldwin people.'

"This is the first common ground."

Voelker first knew that he wanted to be a teacher after working alongside a special needs student as an office-runner at Baldwin High. Then, during his senior year at the high school, he taught in , preparing lessons for district youngsters.

He credits and Tim Robbins, current and former Baldwin High teachers, respectively, for teaching him lifelong lessons to take beyond the walls of the high school. Voelker played football for four years at Baldwin, and Silianoff and Robbins were two of his coaches and mentors.

"Those types of people really mold you as a person and really help define you—those hard days at (football) camp in August, sweating through two or three practices a day, not quitting, showing up on time, still trying to make sure that your studies are done. All of that stuff just makes you a better person, and it makes you successful for life."

In an effort to give that same experience back, Voelker was an assistant football coach under former-Head Coach Silianoff in 2005 and 2006 and is now again under current Head Coach (since 2009). Voelker is Baldwin High's head junior varsity football coach and helps to coordinate the varsity team's defense.

He is also the head jayvee coach for the high school's boys basketball program, having been an assistant for the varsity team since 2009. He's also done coaching at and at .

Voelker sees an opportunity to teach plenty of lessons to students playing sports, just as he learned those same lessons himself not too long ago.

"It's about much more than football or basketball," he says. "It's about life—responsibility and accountability for themselves as people. The Xs and the Os, playing the game, that's not going to be there forever. Football, for example, is not a lifelong sport, but all of the camaraderie and relationships that I know that I've gained will be there (for life)."

Perhaps the biggest lesson that Voelker ever took from sports was that sports aren't everything. He quit playing football after just one year at Thiel College when concussions became an issue for him. But his head coach at the time, Jack Leipheimer, brought him back as a student assistant.

"The doctor basically said, 'Someone's going to clear you (to play),'" Voelker says, "'but you gotta decide, if you're going to be in education and you wanna move forward with that, you've got to be able to communicate with people. You never know what's going to happen.'

"I was fortunate. Coach Leipheimer—he's now the AD (Athletics Director) up there—kept me around. I was thinking about not finishing school because I was working construction, and he kept me around, kept me interested. And thank God he did."

Voelker gets paid to help coach Baldwin's sports teams, but he says that being an assistant in high school could never be about the money. 

"You'd make more working at McDonald's for all the hours you put in," he said.

Instead, coaching gives him another chance to interact with kids and to help them grow as young adults.

His goal is to one day become Baldwin-Whitehall's athletics director, and he's also working toward a master's degree in education with a K-12 principal's certificate from California University of Pennsylvania. That would build on his bachelor's in elementary education from Thiel in 2005. 

But for now, he'll be "the hammer," and fill whatever other shoes are necessary to help Baldwin-Whitehall better itself.

"I want Baldwin to be good at everything," he says. "I want to have the best middle school in the area, I want to have championship teams on the football field and on the basketball court, and I want these people (students) to be successful in life. Because whenever they go on, no matter what they do, when they say they've graduated from Baldwin, we have that common bond.

"We all represent each other."

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