Yet Another Chapter

I suppose books are filled with many chapters and if I am viewing my career as a book, then I should not be surprised to find some chapters are longer than others.

My last post here was when I began my career as an administrator with the Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District. When I joined YCJUSD I was fully prepared to spend many years there, just as I had done in the Fontana Unified School District before them, where I spent 18 years. Sadly, declining enrollment and budget issues made it so the decision was made to eliminate my position as elementary assistant principal at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. It was that experience coupled with my own experiences as a classroom teacher at the elementary level that reminded me what a luxury it is to have an assistant principal at the elementary level even a few days a week.

Being the assistant principal for Valley Elementary & Chapman Heights Elementary schools in Yucaipa was an amazing experience, and a very positive one. I had two amazing principals with very different leadership styles who served as excellent mentors and role models. I also had two amazing staffs, brimming with talented professionals at all levels that enriched each and every day I spent with them. I couldn’t have asked for or dreamed of better.

When I was informed that I would be losing my position, I was offered a classroom placement. I served as a classroom teacher for 15.5 years, I chose the administration path and as a result I chose to remain on that path. It didn’t take much looking at all before I happened upon the Central School District in Rancho Cucamonga, and it wasn’t long before I was offered a position.

March 2020 kicked off a whirlwind for me like no other. I was leaving my job in Yucaipa much sooner than I could have ever guessed, there is a global pandemic resulting in closures of all the things we are used to and enjoy as a society, I was job hunting, I was participating in numerous Zoom interviews… I am grateful and feel very fortunate to have been invited to join the Central School District as one of their newest assistant principals, and more specifically to join the community of Coyote Canyon Elementary School.

Thank you to all those who have supported me, mentored me, encouraged me and loved me through all of this. Without you I don’t know where I would be.