Sunnyvale School District is excited to welcome several familiar faces and one new face to the roles of principal and assistant principals for the 2017-2018 school year.
We welcome Rachelle Romander as the new principal of Fairwood Explorer Elementary School. Rachelle will lead the Fairwood Explorer community after serving three years as assistant principal of Cherry Chase School. Prior to her work at Cherry Chase, Rachelle taught third and fifth grades at Vargas School, served as summer school “Teacher in Charge,” and worked as a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (“STEM”) Instructional Coach. Rachelle is also a leader of the Santa Clara County Reading Council, having served as President, Treasurer, and Asilomar Reading Conference Co-Chair.
Vargas Assistant Principal Cecilia Mendoza-Torres Mah will transfer to Sunnyvale Middle School beginning with this year. Cecilia will be replacing Assistant Principal Cheryl Di Grazia. Prior to her role at Vargas, she was an instructional coach with the District and taught third and fifth grade. During her summers, she taught middle school English Language Arts, English Language Development, and Math and served as principal for the Stanford/Sunnyvale Summer Explorations program at Bishop Elementary in 2014-15. Prior to coming to Sunnyvale, she worked as a preschool teacher, GED teacher, English teacher for adults and Spanish teacher.
John Austin and Winnie Hardie will serve as the Assistant Principals for Vargas School and Cherry Chase School respectively. John came to the District is 2010 as a para educator at Bishop School. He began his teaching career the following year as Resource Specialist at Lakewood. This past year John has served as an induction mentor and early literacy coach.
New to the district is Winnie Hardie, who comes to us after four years as Coordinator of English Learner Development in the Cupertino Union School District. She began her career in the New Haven School District where she worked for 12 years as a teacher and then ELD and Literacy Coach.
Congratulations, to all on your new positions!
This article was written by Michael Gallagher and Alia Wilson.
