Shoal Creek welcomes new principal
Teachers can have life-altering impacts on their students — and not even realize it.
For Libby Keller, Shoal Creek Elementary’s new principal, that teacher was Jane Stelling.
Keller said Stelling was her ninth-grade chorus teacher, and though it was Stelling’s first year in teaching, her performance in the classroom shaped Keller’s future.
“She was a fabulous, energetic person and I fell in love with what she created,” Keller said. “Students couldn’t wait for class and she made students excited about being in school.
“(Teachers) don’t always know who they have an impact on,” Keller said, who years later told Stelling how she influenced Keller’s decision to become a music teacher, too.
A South Carolina native, Keller graduated magna cum laude with undergraduate and graduate degrees in music education from Furman University in Greenville, S.C.
She also earned a Master of Science in Educational Administration from National University in San Diego in 2003.
After teaching in both the high school and middle school levels for several years in South Carolina, Keller moved to San Diego in 1994 because her husband, Joel Keller, was the San Diego Chamber Orchestra’s executive director.
She was the lower school music teacher at La Jolla Country Day School and in 2000 became the assistant to the lower school director while still teaching.
In 2003, she became the vice principal for the Creative, Performing and Media Arts Middle School in the San Diego City School District.
Keller, a Black Mountain Ranch resident for three years, said she wanted to work in Poway Unified School District because of its reputation and she wanted to work near home.
“PUSD has a great reputation in the community and is a great school district,” Keller said.
“I’m very happy to be here and fortunate to be given this opportunity,” Keller said. “I haven’t been this excited for summer to be over in quite a long time.
“I’ve inherited a great situation (at Shoal Creek),” Keller said, who plans to continue the school’s test scores’ “phenomenal growth.”
Keller said she will have an open-door policy because “communication is key” and is looking forward to meeting parents at the school’s PTA picnic on Aug. 31 and at upcoming back-to-school nights.
Even though she’s now principal, Keller said she wouldn’t mind stepping in as music teacher should the occasion arise and is brushing up on Disney songs and folk tunes so she’ll be prepared.
In addition to continuing the fifth-grade band program, Keller said she hopes to resurrect the school choir and other performing and visual arts as an after-school program if there is enough student interest.
“Music is an opportunity for self-expression and creativity,” Keller said, adding that studies have shown that the discipline learned from practicing the arts helps students do better in their schoolwork.
“With practice they get tangible results and develop the ability to focus,” Keller said. “Their confidence spreads back to their academics.”
Keller has not only taught music, but performed as well.
“I sang my first solo in church at age 6 and started playing piano in the third grade,” Keller said, who is a section leader and soloist at St. James-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla.
In 1999 and 2001, she performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Robert Shaw Choral Institute.
“Stepping on stage at Carnegie Hall was a very inspiring experience,” Keller said.
While she enjoys singing all types of music, Keller, a soprano, said show tunes are her favorite.
“Students might hear me singing around school since I can’t keep quiet,” Keller said.
When not involved with music, Keller also enjoys walking the trails at Torrey Pines, reading and spending time with her 11-year-old cat, Harley.