Source: Carmel Valley News 7-31-08
By Marsha Sutton
Laurie Francis, principal of Del Mar Hills Academy, has been named principal of Carmel Valley Middle School. Francis replaces former CVMS principal Michael Grove, who has been promoted to principal of San Dieguito Academy High School in Encinitas. Grove served as CVMS principal for five years.
Francis’s last day at the Hills, one of eight elementary schools in the Del Mar Union School District serving students in kindergarten through sixth grade, is Aug. 1. She begins her new post in the San Dieguito Union High School District on Aug. 4.
“I'm extremely happy for Laurie because she loves the middle school grades and has always talked about returning to this level at some point in her career,” commented DMUSD interim superintendent Janet Bernard, who provided both a written and a verbal recommendation for Francis. “I am confident that she will be able to build upon the standard of excellence already established at Carmel Valley Middle School, because she is so innovative and maintains such high expectations for students, staff and parents."
Francis, 42, has spent 21 years in education, two-thirds of it at the middle school level.
“I love middle school,” she said. “I love the people that gravitate toward middle school. And I love the candidness of kids that age, their insight and their sense of humor. It’s a really exciting time for them. It’s kind of a time when people are pulling away from them but they really need you, so you feel like you’re making a difference, to keep them on track.”
Ken Noah, SDUHSD superintendent, said it’s a unique type of person who can take on the challenges of middle school. “When you have someone who has a love and passion for middle school, and can build staff and students and can communicate that, that’s a real plus,” he said. “The middle years are interesting years, to say the least. And she has a real passion around that.”
Francis was hired as principal at Del Mar Hills in April 2002. Before that, she served as assistant principal of Muirlands Middle School in La Jolla, and previously taught eighth-grade English and history and served as a site staff developer at Ray Kroc Middle School. She began her teaching career at the age of 21 with her first classroom at Lafayette Elementary School. All three schools are part of the San Diego Unified School District.
A native of New York City, Francis attended San Diego State University and holds a master’s degree in gifted and talented education.
She has four children: a four-year-old in preschool, a second-grader at Solana Santa Fe Elementary School in Rancho Santa Fe, and two who were promoted from Del Mar Hills and now attend Earl Warren Middle School in Solana Beach.
Francis called her new job a “fairy-tale assignment” and said it happened almost unexpectedly.
“The interview process went so fast,” she said. “The application deadline was July 17 at 2 p.m., and I literally brought my application up at 1.”
She said she interviewed on the 21st, the 24th, and then on the 25th with Noah. “An hour later, I’m filling out my dental forms, so I was kind of shell-shocked,” she said.
“I’m glad it happened so fast, because sometimes when you take time to pause and you’re happy where you are, it’s easy to just say, ‘Well, this is a known entity for me. I’m comfortable.’”
Francis said she wasn’t really looking to move and had every intention of staying at the Hills. “I put one application in at one district,” she said, emphasizing that she was not actively searching for another job.
But she called this a one-in-a-million opportunity. “Mid-level positions are very, very tough to get, because for every 15 elementary schools, you’ve got one mid-level school,” she said.
Francis said she has “immense respect for San Dieguito and the people that work there” and called the position a “dream job.” It’s not just the principalship in such a high-performing, well-respected district that Francis cited, but also the chance to stay “in a community that I love.”
She said this was the best of both worlds, to be able to work locally in Carmel Valley and serve both Del Mar and Solana Beach students as they transition from sixth to seventh grade.
“I don’t feel as bad as if I were going across town,” she said. “I’m still going to be connected here.”
Even so, Francis said it was “gut-wrenching” to leave Del Mar Hills.
“It was a really painful decision for me to make,” she said. “It would have been very easy to stay. It’s a small school with bright kids and a great parent community. Most of the staff here I’ve worked with for seven years, so it’s hard. And I love the program here. But I think in any career after six or seven years, you’ve got to change it up a little bit.”
Also, she described the Hills as being in great shape. Last year, she thought about applying for a different middle school opening but reconsidered after deciding the timing wasn’t good.
“It didn’t feel right to me,” she said. “But this year I’m rolling over my exact same staff, I’m rolling over the exact same kids, everything’s in place, and it just seems like this is the right time.”
In an email to her staff, she wrote, “After seven plus years, I need to give myself the ‘kick in the pants’ needed to grow professionally. If I pause, as I did last year, I know I will not be able to leave our staff and the secure/safe feeling of ‘the known.’”
In her email, she described her fondness for the “quirkiness” of the middle school years and said the new position will provide “the challenge that I need to keep myself fresh and innovative professionally.”
Francis vehemently denied that the recent unrest and controversy in the Del Mar Union School District had any role in her decision to leave. She called this move “the next logical career step for an elementary school principal.”
Large pool of candidates
SDUHSD superintendent Ken Noah, who began in the district July 1, said the application process started before he arrived, with an initial paper-screening of about 23 applicants, which were then narrowed down to 12.
Further screenings reduced the pool to three final candidates, who then went through an extensive interview with teachers, school staff, parents and central office administrators.
“Laurie was the unanimous choice of the group as the finalist,” Noah said. “I interviewed her late last week, and then confirmed with staff [Monday morning] that Laurie was the final choice.”
Her appointment still requires school board confirmation, but Noah said he was confident, after sharing information about her with board members, that she would be approved.
Terry King, SDUHSD’s associate superintendent of human resources, said the size of the original pool of job candidates was large, especially considering that the position was advertised late in the school year. She declined to say whether any candidates were internal.
Noah offered a number of reasons why Francis was chosen.
“First and foremost, she is an experienced principal,” he said. “Of course, that was at the elementary level, but her track record there … shows her to be a person who can take what often is a complex job of pulling staff together around a common mission and vision for a school, as well as the parent community. … I think she did a good job of creating a sense in that community of pride and ownership in the school.”
He also said the performance of the Hills has been good under her leadership.
Her many years of experience at the middle school level in the San Diego Unified School District prior to Del Mar was another important factor in her selection, Noah said.
“She has good middle school experience and elementary experience,” he said. “And I think that is a real plus for a middle school principal to have had both, because they have a sense of the students coming to them and what that educational experience is and what it should be.”
Noah described Francis as “a person who’s able to communicate in an articulate manner her vision and hopes and dreams for where a middle school can go, but is very much a person who’s committed to building the kinds of relationships with staff and parents and students to move that forward.”
Noah said this is a critical ingredient for an educational leader. “You can have the best ideas in the world, but you have to be able to work well with people to realize them,” he said. “And she has both the proven experience of doing that and also the ability to articulate that.”
“What’s giving me comfort,” Francis said, “is that I have the mid-level background coupled with the seven years’ experience within the community, so I’m not going to be on that learning curve. It’s almost like I can go in and just really focus on learning the [culture of the] school, rather than having to learn mid-level education and learn the community. I feel like I have a little bit of a jump on the game.”
Francis said she didn’t plan to make immediate changes, nor does Noah expect her to.
“I don’t have an agenda that says to Laurie, ‘Here are things that need to be fixed,’” Noah said. “Mike [Grove] has done an excellent job in that school, particularly around school improvement planning. So I think there’s a great deal in place that’s solid.”
He said he talked to Francis about the importance of understanding the strengths of the school and where it’s doing well, developing a sense of what could be improved, and building support for that.
“Mike Grove is a phenomenal principal, and Carmel Valley Middle School has a track record that speaks for itself with regard to student achievement and staffing,” Francis said. “Certainly there’s going to be lots of room for innovation and moving forward, but there’s nothing specific that I was hired to address.”
Francis called the CVMS staff phenomenal and said she plans to spend some time with each staff member to “see who they are and what they like about their school and maybe what they see as the next step.” She hopes to absorb that information and “spend three or four months just watching and learning.”
Projected enrollment
Carmel Valley Middle School, one of the highest-achieving middle schools in the county, is one of four middle schools in the SDUHSD serving students in seventh and eighth grades. CVMS and Earl Warren Middle School in Solana Beach serve students in the southern portion of the district.
Projected enrollment for CVMS this fall is just over 1,300 students, while Earl Warren anticipates about half that number.
The transition for Francis, from an under-enrolled elementary school to an over-subscribed 1,300-student middle school, is an irony that has not gone unnoticed. But Francis said the size is not unusual for middle schools and is not concerned.
“It’s pretty much the average,” she said. “That’s what it was when I was at Muirlands. Carmel Valley [Middle School] has a small-town feel and it’s a tightly run ship.”
Noah agreed. “I don’t believe that for this part of the state a middle school that size is all that unusual. Middle schools designed well to house 1,300 or 1,400 students are very workable.”
Noah did express a personal bias, however. “I would say that middle schools that are smaller or have a small learning community concept I think are inherently stronger and better able to meet the needs of kids,” he said. “I’m not a proponent of building 2,000-student middle schools.”
Francis applauded the district for offering Carmel Valley students the option to attend Earl Warren. “San Dieguito has done a nice job making that a viable option for parents,” she said. “There’s not a competitiveness between the two schools.”
DMUSD board president Annette Easton said the district will immediately begin the process of finding a new principal for Del Mar Hills. Options include a full-time appointment, an interim replacement, or a decision to wait until the district hires its new superintendent, who the board hopes to name by September.
Janet Bernard said she has worked out a cooperative agreement with San Dieguito that frees Francis for a few days to work with her replacement at the Hills.
Francis’s annual salary at San Dieguito will be $127,000. She was earning $117,000 in Del Mar.
In a reorganization of responsibilities, Noah said all middle school principals, including Francis, will be reporting to David Jaffe, the district’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, who retains his other testing and assessment duties.
Jaffe continues to report to Rick Schmitt, SDUHSD’s associate superintendent of instruction, who will now have direct supervision of high school principals.
“We’re aligning the supervisory responsibilities of principals with education services,” explained Noah.
The SDUHSD also announced this week that Rob Coppo, a former teacher at Orange Glen High School in the Escondido Union High School District, has been appointed an assistant principal at Torrey Pines High School. And Jeff Copeland, from Rancho Buena Vista High School in the Vista Unified School District, will serve as assistant principal at Carmel Valley Middle School.
