William “Bill” Dallas, Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement for Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8, is committed to developing future leaders in education. That passion has driven his continued involvement in various mentorship and programs at UCCS.

Bill holds two degrees from UCCS – a master’s in educational leadership and a Ph.D. in educational leadership, research, and foundations. And he was named one of the College of Education’s 2024 Distinguished Alums.

“I try to be as involved as I can,” Bill said. “Educational leadership is getting increasingly more challenging at both the principal level and the district level. I want to do whatever I can to prepare others for the reality of what this job entails – the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

In remarks while presenting the Distinguished Alum award, UCCS Assistant Teaching Professor and Educational Leadership Program Coordinator Karin Reynolds said Bill’s career has thus far been defined by a passion for educational excellence, a commitment to professional development, and a dedication to fostering leadership within the educational community

“I became an educator because I was passionate about education, and as I moved to become an assistant principal, I got to help other educators. When I became a principal, it just got bigger,” he said. “I really want to leave education in a better place than how I found it.”

His educational career has included teaching “every secondary science you can imagine.” He lights up when he talks about teaching physics.

“You can take a junk drawer from your home, dump it on the ground and there’s 15 different physics experiments sitting there. You can let kids’ minds run wild,” Bill explained.

Bill said his current role as assistant superintendent, while further away from hands-on learning in the classroom, offers an opportunity to support an important segment of the Pikes Peak region.

“The community of Fountain is predominantly military-associated families,” he said. “I take a lot of pride in educating and keeping the kids of our men and women safe so that they can serve our country.”

His efforts to help his peers and the surrounding community have been noticed by more than just the UCCS College of Education. Bill was the 2016 Reba M. Ferguson Memorial Colorado Rookie Elementary School Principal of the Year and the 2020 Colorado Nationally Distinguished Secondary School Principal of the Year. He is also the former president of the Colorado Association of Secondary School Principals and works to bring educational advocacy before the state legislature.

“People will ask me, ‘as an assistant superintendent, what do you do?’ and it would take me a day to explain what I do because it literally changes every five minutes,” he said, adding that the work, even in its unpredictability “fills his bucket.”

“You’re a fortunate individual if you get to wake up in the morning and be happy about going to work. And I get that in my job with District 8,” Bill said.