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Westwood’s new principal ready to meet 800 students

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New Westwood Elementary School Principal Jennie Mikels said her plan upon retirement was to move back to San Diego.

But an opportunity to be a principal in Poway Unified School District is letting her fulfill that dream several years earlier.

“I said, ‘Why wait?,” Mikels recalled on Monday. “I loved the district and area I was in, but when this opportunity came up it was a great fit.”

Mikels, who grew up in the San Bernardino County community of Earp, California, earned her bachelor’s degree and multiple subject teaching credential at San Diego State University. However, her first teaching position ended up in the Riverside Unified School District, where over the years she taught multiple grades at the elementary level in addition to a four-year stint educating seventh and eighth graders.

While early in her career she earned a master’s degree in educational administration from California State University, San Bernardino, followed later by other administrative credentials earned there and at the University of California, Irvine, Mikels said she waited a decade before leaving the classroom for the administrative side of education.

“I was in no hurry to leave the classroom,” she said.

It was after being a literacy coach at a high performing school — “the hardest job I had,” Mikels said, — that someone suggested she consider switching to administration after 17 years of teaching.

“Because I spent so much time in the classroom and as a coach, I have a good understanding of all perspectives, which gives me credibility with all and I trust myself,” she said. “I had a lot of success before making (the switch).”

She was an assistant principal for three years in the Riverside district before she became principal of Monroe Elementary School in 2011, where she remained until now.

Mikels said she and Poway Unified share a common vision of education, one that wants to help all students reach their highest possible level of achievement. Both are also strong believers in personalized learning. She also places reading and literacy among her top priorities and said she believes in utilizing a variety of tools to educate children, including technology.

“One of my biggest goals is to meet the needs of each individual,” she said. “State standards are a priority ... but I’m more concerned with each individual child reaching (his or her) highest potential.”

Mikels said she enjoyed working with middle school students, but she has primarily worked with elementary students because that is where she can help them “unlock the magic of reading. It’s like nothing else.”

It is her love of books and language that led her to a teaching career and desire to “open that world for (students),” she said.

Rather than imposing changes upon Westwood Elementary, Mikels said she wants to have the school’s staff and community help her determine what is needed. “It’s about ‘we’ ... together,” she said.

One thing she plans on continuing is Westwood’s implementation of project based learning, which has teachers start every lesson with a question that motivates students to seek answers, she said.

The mother of two college-age children said she loves the beach and participates in a lot of 5Ks. “I’m an outdoorsy person,” she said.

Mikels said she is looking forward to meeting the families of her 800 new students spanning from transitional kindergarten to fifth grade. Newcomers will gather on campus on Monday, a day before all students start the academic year. The PTA will organize another event for all families soon after classes start.

She said returning families will notice a reorganized parking lot when classes start, which should allow for a better flow of vehicles and increase student safety. Mikels said there will be signs and several people to direct vehicles.

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