Woodshop Teacher Mark Leeper Reflects on 40 Years

Mark Leeper’s classes have long served as an outlet for students to express their creativity, connect with peers, discover hidden passions, and simply wind down. “I hope I’ve been able to bring some levity and some sense of camaraderie,” he said. Leeper will retire at the end of this school year, concluding a nearly 40-year career. He has been at M-A since 1987 and currently teaches Woodworking and Architectural Design, in addition to serving as the Career Technical Education Department Chair.

Leeper was inspired by his own teachers to enter education. “I was very lucky to have really good teachers all through school, but especially in high school. I thought if I could do that for somebody else, that would be great,” he said. 

He attended the now-inoperative San Carlos High School, which was in the same district as M-A, and competed against the school in swim meets, water polo games, and wrestling matches. “A lot of those teachers had come to M-A when San Carlos closed, and so I was teaching with my former teachers. That was pretty cool,” he said.

Leeper’s path to M-A was all about timing. While earning his teaching credential at Stanford with the intention of becoming a math teacher, he held a student teaching position at M-A. When the previous shop teacher left right before the start of the school year, Leeper seized the opportunity—and he’s been at the school ever since. “I went and applied for the job, and I got it two or three days before school started. I had never taught a shop class before,” he said. “It ended up that I was taking classes at night and teaching during the day to try to figure out what I was going to do. Luckily, I had some people at the other schools who helped me out.” 

“The principal we had, Joyce Rosenstiel, was really helpful, very supportive, and understood that it was rough, so she didn’t put any pressure on me. She just wanted me to learn how to do the job, which was great,” he added.

Leeper’s classes have allowed students to express their creativity through hands-on projects. Before settling into Architecture and Woodshop, he also taught Mechanical Drawing, Metal Shop, and Study Hall. “Woodshop can be inspiring, especially when people come up with ideas and can execute them better than I feel like I could. In Architecture, we see a lot of design and creativity. That’s coming from the students. It’s not necessarily what I teach, it’s what they come up with, and they can develop really good ideas,” he said.

Since the Industrial Arts Department consisted of just one class at a time, Leeper began his M-A career as a Department Head. Over a decade ago, he took on a larger role as the Department Head of Career Technical Education (CTE) when those courses were consolidated under one umbrella. In his position, Leeper managed budgets and procedures for a wide range of classes—from Digital Filmmaking to his own Architecture course. “Our electives are not quite as culturally valued as the academic courses and college prep courses, and that makes it a little difficult. If I had to do it again, I probably would try to fight more for some kind of equal footing,” he said.

One of Leeper’s longstanding goals has been to motivate more students to enroll in CTE classes, which he believes offer value beyond what a traditional classroom environment can provide. “You make things with your hands using your brain altogether, and you end up with a valuable product that you can take home and use. It’s not just intellectual stimulation or development. I also think that hands-on learning has been pushed to the side more because colleges don’t require it,” he said.

Since students are able to take Architecture or Woodshop in successive years with rising complexity, Leeper has often been able to watch them grow over time. “I’ve had some similar situations with students whom I’ve had three and four and five classes with. It’s amazing,” he said. 

“His sixth period class has been the highlight of my day for three years now, and the community he has built in the architecture class is unmatched to anywhere else on campus,” senior Sofia Basso said.

Leeper also taught Engineering on and off for nearly 10 years. “Engineering was always fun because we’d have these challenges, and people would rise to them. I still have memories of paper towers and catapults that would throw these little balls for what seems like a mile,” he said.

Leeper cherishes M-A’s tight-knit community and the diversity within it. “I really think the staff has been generally good over the years, really a great group of people to work with. The kids are great, but the adults are more consistent,” he said. “Because of what I teach, I’ve been fortunate enough to have a spectrum of all the different kinds of people who go to school here.” 

Leeper has watched the school change—both physically, in the construction of new buildings, and culturally, in the mounting pressure placed on students, which he has seen his classes become an outlet for escaping. “I feel like the pressure on students has increased, which is unfortunate, but when they find those outlets, that makes it even more of a relief. It’s a double-edged sword,” he said.

In the late ’90s, Leeper assisted students in building gravity cars for entry in a charity racing competition run by venture capitalists, titled the Sand Hill Challenge. “It was a really goofy, fun adventure,” he said. “That might be the original impetus of any kind of robotics thing. Then the robotics team started a couple years after that.”

He was the FRC Team 766 Robotics team’s advisor at their inception, helping to start the program. He stepped down to prioritize his personal life, but the team still keeps materials and meets in his classroom. “Because it started here, I’ve always shared the space,” he said. Since then, the team has expanded heavily and recently competed in the world championships.

Having taught for so long, Leeper enjoys seeing the impact his class has on former students. “I’ve been fortunate enough to hear what happens to [former students] after, and often you don’t get to see the impact after high school. But sometimes you do, and they’ll tell you there’s a direct connection, and that’s really gratifying,” he said.  

“Mr. Leeper is the type of teacher who goes multiple steps above and beyond for his students. If it wasn’t for Mr. Leeper, I would not be going to college for architecture, and I wouldn’t have the love for the trade like I do,” Basso said. 

“There is an emphasis on patience, intention, and planning which I feel have overall translated into my out of school life,” senior Bennett Zadig said.

Leeper enjoyed the solitude of the pandemic and decided to retire from teaching on his own terms. “I want to make sure that I have time to do things for myself. I wanted to make sure that I went out with something left to give, instead of running out of gas,” he said. 

“My longevity for the time I’ve been here is an indication of what it’s meant to me. If it hadn’t worked out, I would’ve left,” Leeper said.

He looks forward to getting a full night’s rest, fulfilling personal projects, going on bike rides, traveling, seeing friends, and discovering new things. “I started feeling like I’d rather learn than teach,” he said.

With his final year closing out, Leeper’s wish for the future is simple: for the program he has built for decades to continue, and for students to continue bringing their lessons into the world. “That would be the most important thing, and then it’s just up to the students who have been here to carry on the legacy outside, and then the students who come to develop their own. I’m hoping that somebody will come in and embrace the program the way I did, and carry on from here,” he concluded.