John Porter always wanted to be a teacher. For as long as he can remember, his response to “What do you want to do when you grow up?” always related to education (and still does). Porter joined the South East Education Cooperative team as the Executive Director on July 1, 2024.
Porter’s passion for education has manifested as several roles within the field. After receiving an elementary education degree from Minot State University, he substitute taught and worked as a paraeducator for two years before becoming a special education teacher. He pursued his master’s degree at Minot State and worked as a special education teacher for five years in Minot. His family then moved to Bismarck where he worked for four years as a Special Education Regional Coordinator at the ND Department of Public Instruction (DPI). Porter’s portfolio at DPI covered Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) (Response To Intervention at the time), development of a statewide special education case management system, and rewriting the guidelines for students with emotional disturbance and for autism. After moving to Fargo in 2008, Porter took over as the Director of the South Valley Special Education Unit, and in 2014/2015, began as the Director with South Valley and Rural Cass Special Education Units. He now serves as the Executive Director for the South East Education Cooperative 70% of the time and spends the other 30% as a Co-Director for the South Valley/Rural Cass Special Education Units.
As the second-ever Executive Director for SEEC, Porter serves as a guiding force for the organization and provides leadership for ongoing projects. While discussing the importance of the variety of programs and professional development opportunities SEEC offers, Porter expressed the importance of partnership among schools and regional education associations. He stated one of his goals as, “listening carefully to our local administrators to help [SEEC] understand what their priorities are that they have in their schools [so that] we can develop projects that help support our whole organization.” He went on to more specifically state that a goal of his was to visit with local administrators from each of SEEC’s partner schools – a lofty goal at 41 schools. While this is still an ongoing project, Porter remains dedicated to strengthening communication between schools and SEEC.
One passion project of Porter’s is highlighting how SEEC and its Child Care Aware (CCA) project can work to support the child care needs of its member districts and other schools across the state. The child care crisis impacts schools from a workforce standpoint, to ensure educators have access to high quality affordable care for their children. CCA also serves as a source of information on child care topics like starting a child care and health and safety in these settings. They also host professional learning opportunities like SEEDS, an educational framework to promote quality interactions between children and adults. Child Care Aware helps support children from birth through school-age. Additional areas of focus are a new DPI proposal to fund paraeducator professional development and the possible expansion of Medicaid to include school psychology services.
While he proclaimed his interest in becoming a teacher from an early age, Porter also expressed his wish to be a good husband and dad when he grew up. He has certainly reached that goal as he and his wife, Missy, have six children. His family serves as a “grounding force” as he balances his educational work and his other interests like spending time outdoors and exploring community events in Fargo and the Twin Cities. John Porter is motivated by and dedicated to relationship building, whether those are with schools or his family. Welcome to SEEC, John!