When Mark Julien speaks, students, parents, teachers and administrators listen. With his creativity, compassion, drive, diplomatic and data-tracking skills and inspiring leadership style, the "rising star" is not only influential at Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights, but throughout the Macomb County schools. At Ford—where he teaches subjects such as Advanced Placement English literature and composition, Honors English and 10th-grade English, and is also a popular varsity baseball assistant coach—Julien is known as a teacher whom students returning from college love to visit. And no wonder; they were prepared for the demands of college and careers thanks in a big way to Julien's rigorous standards in reading, writing and critical thinking. Top performers aren't the only beneficiaries; Julien relishes the opportunity to help struggling learners as well.
With all of his students, Julien uses the best research-based practices, assiduously tracking progress and studying the data to learn what approaches work best. He employs approaches such as think-pair-share, guided highlighted reading and close and critical reading. His embrace of technology includes posting lessons on Schoology and requiring students to submit assignments on turnitin.com so that he knows they're doing their own work. An advocate of blended learning, Julien has students watch videos of his lessons at home, freeing up classroom time for discussion. He makes himself available to students online around the clock.
Julien's efforts have had stellar results. His data shows that students who take his weeklong ACT preparation workshop can increase their scores by 2 points, a meaningful difference on this college entrance exam. The workshop is so successful that it has been extended to the entire 150,000-student Macomb Intermediate School District. One student coached by Julien got a perfect score on her ACT and was honored at the White House as a Presidential Scholar. Julien's Advanced Placement students continue to score above the national average on College Board AP exams.
Julien is also on special assignment for the local Utica Community Schools district, where he is credited with developing significant curriculum. He goes from school to school working with teachers as an English Language Arts curriculum specialist, preparing them for the new Smarter Balanced student assessment system. He makes presentations to parents as well, making them feel involved and respected. In all his roles, Mark Julien has shown that he will not waver when it comes to what is right for students.
I’m here, the product of a working class family,..." (read more)
