 | | | Carol Kitchens, retiring Campolindo High School Principal
Photos Cathy Dausman
| | | | | | Moraga students at three area schools will have new leadership for the 2012-2013 school year as the principals move to new positions or to retirement. Campolindo High School Principal Carol Kitchens and Los Perales Elementary Principal Bill Walters are both retiring; Principal Deborah Roden is leaving Camino Pablo Elementary to become director of curriculum and instruction for Las Lomitas Elementary School District in Menlo Park.
Moraga School District Superintendent Bruce Burns says Roden's "expertise in curriculum and instruction has been an asset to Camino Pablo and to the district." Roden loves the "bookends" of greeting students both mornings and afternoons and says she has felt "truly blessed" working within her school community. She says she has made personal friends in her three-year tenure at Camino Pablo. "This [new] job found me," she explains, but the Santa Cruz area native also admits the tie-breaker in deciding was relocating near her young grandson.
Carol Kitchens has worked for 39 years as an educator, 19 of them as an administrator. Becoming principal at Campolindo High School was a job she says she dreamed of. Although the job is "24/7" intensive, requiring evening commitments several nights a week, "it always felt so good [to be here]," she says. Some of her fondest memories have been of bringing former students back as Campolindo teachers. Kitchens plans to spend time visiting her grown daughters in Arizona and the Dutch West Indies after her June 30 retirement.
Bill Walters retires as Principal at Los Perales Elementary after 47 years in education. Except for a short "retirement" earlier and a few years at Antioch Middle School, Walters has been in Moraga since 1988, first as a teacher, then as assistant principal and later as principal of Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School. "It's time for me to start taking care of myself," he says simply.
Burns says bringing in new principals to Camino Pablo and Los Perales allows those schools "an opportunity to reevaluate desired qualities and future challenges." He says the hiring process "is an exciting opportunity to meet candidates" and learn what they can offer to students, staff and parents.
No changes are slated for either Orinda or Lafayette School District principals at this time.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA