A leader for outdoor learning

Mike Mullen has spent his career with one foot in the woods and the other in the classroom.

Now he has both feet firmly planted outside as the new principal of the Riveredge Outdoor Learning Elementary School, or ROLES, where the outdoors is the classroom.

“For me, this was a really great fit,” Mullen said. “It was just a great opportunity.”

Mullen was named principal of ROLES this summer after having served on the school’s Governance Board, helping develop and guide the school through its first year.

Mullen previously taught biology at Menomonee Falls High School and was an elementary school principal in Greendale.

During both those stints, he organized several environmental and science initiatives.

He also holds a bachelor’s degree in forestry and resource management that gave  him opportunities to work for the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

He has been associated with the Riveredge Nature Center near Newburg, where ROLES is located, for about 20 years, bringing his students from Menomonee Falls and his own children to the center.

“My involvement began at Riveredge as a science teacher at Menomonee Falls in its Test the Waters program, which still exists,” he said. “And my kids and I came out here all the time. They took a lot of classes here.”

ROLES, a charter school of the Northern Ozaukee School District, was “teacher-empowered” and had no principal the first year, Mullen said.

ROLES is a K-5 school that uses the outdoors as the classroom. While students can retreat to yurts and an education center on the property, most learning takes place outdoors in all sorts of weather.

For instance, on a rainy morning last Friday, third-graders roamed the center grounds, learning about the scientific method and writing in their journals.

ROLES is built on the philosophy that the outdoors is more conducive to learning and educational exploration.

“In most school settings, kids will read 15, 20, maybe 30 minutes,” Mullen said, pointing toward a group of third-graders. “These guys will come out here and read for 45 minutes non-stop because of the setting.”

The school also receives administrative assistance from Oshkosh-based Cooperative Educational Service Agency, or CESA, 6, which works with 39 school districts in eastern Wisconsin.

“The school grew and grew, and the Governance Board, which is a charter school version of a school board, decided it wanted a principal and I was available, having retired,” Mullen said.

“We learned a lot in the first year. In any charter school, the first few years can be challenging. We had construction of the buildings and yurts, and teaching in an outdoor environment can be a challenge.”

The school has about 90 students but still has openings in its second and third grades.

Some families bowed out after last year partly to concerns related to Covid-19, but they were replaced by others interested in the outdoor learning model.

“The reaction was very positive. People were looking for something different,” Mullen said.

Officials hope the school will eventually expand to eighth grade. A fund drive to build a facility to accommodate those students had begun before the onset of the virus.

Mullen said that drive had already raised several million dollars before it was halted and will likely resume this year.

“There was some significant momentum. We had hoped that planning and construction would start next year. This is a very active place in the summer as well. That building would house hundreds of students,” he said.

“That’s our ultimate goal, to have permanent classrooms and create and grow a school that uses the environment as our textbook. That attracts parents.”