Greg Brittenham, a nationally recognized conditioning coach who worked 20 years for the New York Knicks, will be leading physical education classes at the Haines School this year.

Brittenham is one of four new, full-time teachers hired by the Haines Borough School District for the 2014-15 school year. Others include high school English teacher Ryan Harms, high school special education teacher Wendy Albrecht and second-grade teacher Kim Sundberg.

“I’ve been trying to get here for 15 years,” Brittenham said in an interview this week. He came to Haines with Klukwan Basketball Camp of Champs teacher Al Sokaitis in 1993 and started building a house at Letnikof in 1998.

“After the (Klukwan) camp stopped, I kept coming up. I was a stalker… I got to know people here and got close friends here in Haines and decided this is where I wanted to end up,” Brittenham said.

Brittenham worked the past three years as director of athletic performance for basketball programs at Wake Forest University. Before legendary Knicks coach Pat Riley hired him, he worked three years as director of athletic development at the National Institute for Fitness and Sport, a research-based facility in Indiana.

His off-season work, leading summertime basketball and special needs camps, in part drew him to the job here. “I work with kids every chance I get. I’ve traveled around the world working with kids,” he said. This past summer, he worked at eight camps in Southeast.

He said he doesn’t consider his new job a step down in his career. “If you judge the quality of your life by your income, that’s a sad approach. I judge the quality of my life by my happiness and Haines provided that. I consider this a move up in quality of life.”

Young students in his classes can expect a lot of fundamentals, including hopping, skipping, jumping and bounding. They also can expect an element of ambidexterity, including activities like juggling, which challenge their brain’s right side, which is responsible for creativity. Older students might see multi-task activities, like jumping a barrier on the way to shooting a jump shot.

“It really does improve the entire brain, which is now involved in decision-making. The idea is that hopefully there’s a transference to academia,” Brittenham said. To parents his message is: “Don’t be surprised if it’s your conventional physical education class and hopefully we instill (in students) a sense of understanding and interest in the importance of an active life and physical fitness in general.”

Brittenham holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s degree in exercise science. His son teaches youth movement in Colorado and his daughter, a college student, plays professional basketball in Ireland.

A former girls’ basketball coach at the Amateur Athletic Union, Brittenham said he’s “talking to” district officials about coaching the high school’s girls varsity hoops team.

New high school English teacher Ryan Harms says students in his classes can expect “a place where your creativity will be given free rein.” Harms is a former college football player, bartender and world traveler, who describes himself as a storyteller who uses tales as a model to get students writing.

Harms grew up in Pullman, Wash., and holds a bachelor’s degree in English. He taught for two years at both Healy and Galena. “I’m a big proponent of letting students explore their own interests. I just guide how they talk about that. They like to explore. I facilitate a more productive way to do that.”

Underclassmen in his class will get “a consistent, safe, non-judgmental environment where ideas are encouraged and nurtured,” he said, without losing sight of standards like proper grammar.

Harms also is teaching a journalism elective this semester and hopes to have students document stories of residents who moved to Haines in a “Ken Burns-style” documentary.

“I want to get them into the basics of storytelling and get them using photos and narration in ways that are more effective than just text. I want them utilizing the school’s programs and technology as much as I can,” Harms said.

Harms has taught social studies and high school Spanish in Alaska and recently was substitute teaching in Seattle. He took a break from teaching in Alaska to spend a year in Costa Rica, earning his certification in teaching English as a second language.

Harms is a hiker and kayaker. He said he was trying to get a job in Southeast when the job here opened. “I liked the rapport I had with the interview committee and the people I met here before I was hired,” he said.

New second-grade teacher Kim Sundberg is a 14-year-resident who has held a variety of positions working with children here. This is her first school teaching job. She has led a ballet program, organized summer science camps, served on the boards of the state fair and Chilkat Valley Preschool, and homeschooled her own children. “I’ve always worked with younger children. Teaching was just part of who I was.”

Young students need to be sensitive to one another, she said. “We’re all striving to reach a common goal, using as many learning styles as possible to attain those goals.”

Sundberg said she has always taken an active approach in teaching. “Kids need to be hands on. It’s really hard for them to sit at desks all day. They have to learn to do that, but they need (the opportunity to learn in active ways),” she said. She’ll incorporate movement and music in her class, she said.

Sundberg holds a bachelor’s degree in education and spent more than three years studying microbiology and biochemistry at the University of Idaho. She said her students will get science in her class, including through field trips to the frog ponds at the airport and in classroom instruction ranging from rocks and minerals to animal classification.

Her students will learn Tlingit language basics and also Spanish instruction, she said. “I really feel I’m just one person. I need to bring community into the school and reach out to the community as well. Our community is small. We need to take advantage of what we have here.”

Sundberg said she’s happy and honored to be part of the school’s teaching team and wants to hear from parents of her students. “They can expect the best of me and from me. I really think open communication is critical to a successful relationship. I need their feedback because I’m new to this.”

Special education teacher Wendy Albrecht will lead special services in the high school, oversee the school’s independent learning center, and teach classes in creative writing, integrated science and world history. She worked at Wasilla’s Colony Middle School last year and previously taught English and history at Barrow High School and Point Lay School.

A native of Topeka, Kan., Albrecht holds an undergraduate degree in journalism and a master’s degree in liberal arts with a concentration in education. She worked 10 years at the University of Kansas as an instructor and advisor while taking classes toward a doctoral degree in higher education.

Working alongside teachers and learning about differentiated education, she said, changed her career course. “I was in with a bunch of teachers who taught K-12, and I thought, ‘This is what I really want to do.’ I took a U-turn and got a teaching certificate instead of a (doctorate degree).”

Her move to Alaska was inspired in part by a former principal in Topeka who’d worked as a commercial fisherman here, and by an Alaska recruiter at a Kansas teaching job fair. She joined a former Kansas classmate at Point Lay, a North Slope whaling village of 250 where women still make seal-skin boats.

In Point Lay, the school was a hub for the community, where caribou were dressed out and Inupiat teachers taught cultural values like giving thanks for the harvest. “In communities like that, the school is the community.”

She came to Haines at the urging of her husband, who works for the state Division of Forestry and was looking to relocate to Haines or Skagway.

Albrecht said her style is to work from her students’ strengths so they can get ownership of their own education. “I’m their guide. It’s the students’ classroom.” A favorite memory of her experience is when a Barrow student who was resistant to her style of teaching – which includes learning by making mistakes – decided he wanted to lead the class and its discussion.

She said she likes being in a small school with a supportive staff and community, and also appreciates being able to have a vegetable garden.