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The San Ramon Valley Unified School District Board of Education has appointed a slew of new principals to schools throughout the district who will help lead the academic community in the new school year.
Come the start of the 2020-21 school year, Monina Salazar will serve as principal at Alamo Elementary School, Meredith Bullock will serve at Golden View Elementary School, Elizabeth “Liz” Lyons at Montair Elementary School, Kelly Walton at Walt Disney Elementary School, Jenny Torres at Gale Ranch Middle School and Andy Briggs at Los Cerros Middle School.
Additionally, district officials have announced that Jennie Kordes has been selected to serve as the SRVUSD’s new program supervisor of special education.
The decisions were announced following closed-session deliberations during the board’s regular meeting on Tuesday evening.
“The superintendent and the Board of Education offer their most sincere congratulations to all these individuals and wish them great success in their new positions,” Adrienne Herrera, SRVUSD’s administrative assistant of human resources, said in a statement.
Monina Salazar: Principal, Alamo Elementary School
Replacing retiring principal Stanley Hitomi, district officials say Salazar is joining the SRVUSD from the San Bruno Park School District where she has served as a site administrator for the last two years — most recently as principal of Allen Elementary School.
Salazar will be a familiar face to many San Ramon Valley residents, having worked as a teacher on special assignment (TSA) for literacy intervention and instructional coaching from 2015 through 2018 and a third- and fourth-grade teacher at Live Oak Elementary School.
A graduate from San Francisco State University, Salazar has a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in teaching reading.
District officials added that Salazar said she is looking forward to returning home here in the San Ramon Valley.
Meredith Bullock: Principal, Golden View Elementary
Golden View’s current interim principal, Bullock was the board’s selection for the permanent position as an experienced administrator who is familiar with the needs of the San Ramon school.
Prior to being appointed as interim principal in 2019 after then-principal Vanessa Cutler resigned, Bullock was assistant principal at Pine Valley Middle School, a position she held for two years.
An administrator with extensive experience in the classroom, Bullock was a teacher at Pine Valley from 2013-17 and at Bollinger Canyon Elementary School from 2003-13.
District officials added that she also served as summer school co-principal in summer 2019.
Bullock also has a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies from Saint Mary’s College and a Master of Arts in educational leadership from Brandman University.
Elizabeth “Liz” Lyons: Principal, Montair Elementary School
Lyons is joining Danville’s Montair Elementary from Pleasanton Unified School District where she has been a vice principal at Lydiksen Elementary School and Pleasanton Middle School for the last four years.
Lyons will be replacing former principal Ondi Tricaso, who is retiring.
A longtime employee of the Pleasanton Unified, Lyons also devoted many years to teaching at both Hart Middle School and Harvest Park Middle School, during which time she also served as a new teacher mentor with the Tri-Valley Teacher Induction Program.
Prior to that, she also taught elementary school in Newark Unified School District from 1991-99 and was an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco from 2005-10.
Montair’s new top administrator also has an extensive background in receiving education, earning a Bachelor of Science in biology from San Diego State University, a master’s in educational leadership from Saint Mary’s College and a doctorate degree in learning and instruction from the University of San Francisco.
Kelly Walton: Principal, Walt Disney Elementary School
Having served as Walt Disney’s interim principal since 2019, Walton is a familiar face in the San Ramon school.
Prior to taking on the role as the school’s top administrator, district officials say she was a TSA from 2014-19 at multiple elementary sites within the SRVUSD, including Quail Run, Walt Disney and Golden View.
Walton also taught at Bollinger Canyon and Quail Run from 2005-14.
District officials added that she has a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies with a minor in history from Saint Mary’s College and a Master of Arts in educational leadership from Brandman University.
Jenny Torres: Principal, Gale Ranch Middle School
A longtime administrator in the SRVUSD, Torres has worked within the district as an administrator and classroom educator going back to 2005.
Torres was most recently principal at Bella Vista Elementary School where she has served for the past three years and was an assistant principal at Windemere Ranch Middle School from 2014-17.
The San Ramon school’s principal was also a TSA for middle school math in 2013 and a math teacher at Charlotte Wood Middle School for nine years before that.
District officials say she has a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies from Cal State University, Long Beach.
Andy Briggs: Principal, Los Cerros Middle School
Having served as interim principal at Los Cerros Middle School in Danville since November, Briggs will look to hit the ground running now that his position has been officially confirmed as permanent.
A longtime classroom educator, Briggs first joined the SRVUSD’s administrative team in fall 2017 as assistant principal at California High School after dedicating nearly 20 years as a social studies teacher and assistant principal at Las Lomas and Acalanes high schools in the Acalanes Union High School District.
According to district officials, he has a Bachelor of Arts in history from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Master of Science in education, media, design and technology from Full Sail University.
Jennie Kordes: Program Supervisor, Special Education
A career special educator with more than two decades of experience, Kordes is joining the SRVUSD’s leadership team after most recently working as assistant director of special education in Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District since 2015.
Before Livermore, Kordes was a program specialist and a Speech-Language Department lead in the Castro Valley Unified School District, and served the New Haven Unified School District from 1998-2009 as a special day class teacher and a speech-language pathologist.
Kordes has a Master of Arts in communication disorders from University of the Pacific and Bachelor of Arts in speech pathology and audiology from San Jose State University.