News

The Novi Community School District is proud to announce Donald M. Watchowski as the next Athletic Director.

“Don emerged as our top candidate after a comprehensive multi-step process,” said Dr. Gary Kinzer, Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources. “I am confident that he will do an outstanding job leading our athletic program.”

Watchowski has served as the Assistant Principal and Athletic Director at Royal Oak High School for the past five years.

He also served as the Assistant Principal and Athletic Director at Ortonville Brandon High School (2011-2016) and Richmond High School (2010-2011).

 “I am very excited to soon be joining the Novi Community School District academic and athletic community,” Watchowski said. “We will strive to continue building upon the excellent Wildcat tradition.

“Mostly I look forward to building positive and productive relationships with our staff, teachers, coaches, administrators, student-athletes, and families. That trust will be the foundation for our work of providing the best possible experience for our student-athletes.”

Watchowski is a certified athletic administrator. A member of the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association, he has been a past presenter on coach evaluation and development at MIAAA conferences.

He is an innovative athletic administrator and was named the Oakland County Athletic Director of the Year in 2020.  He has served as the Oakland Activities Association’s Unified Basketball Chair (2019-2020). He founded both a student-athlete leadership team and a coaches’ leadership team at Royal Oak High.

He’s been a past president of the Oakland County Athletic Directors Association (2016), the Greater Flint Middle School League (2013-2015) and the Blue Water Athletic Conference (2011).

Watchowski has been a successful teacher and coach. He coached baseball in Birmingham and basketball in Royal Oak and Rochester.

He was a baseball student-athlete at Michigan State (1998-2001) and at Missouri State University (2001-20012). He earned a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and a master’s degree in K-12 educational administration from Michigan State University.

Last spring, Novi Middle School became the first middle school in Michigan to be accepted into the PBS Newshour Student Reporting Labs program. PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs is a project-based learning program that supports teachers and young people to report on important issues in their community, creating impactful video reports for local media outlets and the national PBS NewsHour.

Four Novi Middle School Media Technology students will have their sound bites aired on the One Detroit program on Detroit Public Television.  They recorded rapid response messages to the next President and Vice-President.    

Congratulations to the four students: 

Anirudh Kundurthy

Lindsey Conner

Tanmaya Reddy

Lalitaditya Akkaraju

You can view the One Detroit episode.  

The segment will aired on One Detroit on Detroit Public TV at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, 2021 and will also air  at 9 a.m. on Sunday, January, 24, 2021. 

Novi Middle School Daily Health Screener

Emma Adams and Lindsey Levine earned Best In Show honors at the Michigan Student Film Festival for "Social Media Impact on Middle School Students." The video will be shown at 7 p.m. on May 14 on the Michigan Student Film Festival's Facebook Page by Digital Arts, Film & Television and DIA's Detroit Film Theatre.