This upcoming school year will bring several staffing changes to the school district. Amador Valley High School Vice Principal Greg Giglio will be leaving Amador to take over as principal of Village High School. In the district office, Director of Assessment and Evaluation James Gulek is leaving at the end of August to take a position as assistant superintendent of research, planning and evaluation for the Long Beach Unified School District. The district has yet to replace Giglio or Gulek, but plans on having the positions filled before the start of the school year, said Superintendent John Casey.
Giglio first began working in the district as an English teacher at Amador, where he helped organize the academy program and served as the lead teacher for the media arts communication academy.
“Working with the academy and being the lead teacher, I was doing things like developing curriculum, working with students outside of the classroom and developing programs and processes,” Giglio said. “It was a different way to approach teaching and working with students that energized me. I enjoyed the challenge.”
The experience inspired Giglio to apply for the vice principal position at Amador when it opened. He has held that post for the past two years.
“Amador has been a great place,” Giglio said. “It’s been wonderful to me, and it’s hard to leave here. I think I’ve learned a lot from Bill Coupe (principal of Amador) and the other vice principals on how to deal with students and address parents to make win-win situations.”
Looking for a good fit for Village, the district went through an extensive application process, soliciting applicants from inside and outside the district, before it whittled down the pool to eight eligible candidates, Casey said.
“Greg brought forth the ability to connect very well with students,” Casey said. “He’s somebody very visible on the campus and understands curriculum and instruction very well.”
Giglio will replace Kale Alderson who was hired as principal of Village last year.
“He (Alderson) took a job in Contra Costa County, and that’s all I can really say about it,” Casey said.
Looking toward next year, Giglio said he hopes to continue providing students with a strong alternative to the comprehensive high schools and maintain a collaborative environment among the staff.
“We want a principal who will maintain a very safe environment and work well with teachers to provide the best curriculum for students,” Casey said.
Leaving the district entirely, Gulek will start his new position in Long Beach on August 14, right after he completes his annual meetings with principals and teachers where he reviews student data from the previous year and helps them prepare lesson plans for the upcoming year. In fact, Gulek’s work connecting data analysis to real changes in curriculum has been the hallmark of his five-year tenure in Pleasanton, Casey said.
“We’re proud of what he’s done here,” Casey said. “He has an ability to take data and cipher it into a form that teachers and principals can grasp onto and then change their instruction and the curriculum because of that data.”
Gulek’s new position in Long Beach will afford him the opportunity to apply this same tactic on a much larger scale. The Long Beach school district is comprised of more than 90 schools and 93,000 students, and Gulek will oversee the work of six support staff and four managers, whereas in Pleasanton he was an office of one.
“In Long Beach, I will be doing a lot more visionary supervision,” Gulek said. “Long Beach has a very diverse student population, not like Pleasanton. It has schools with API scores of 900 and schools with scores of 650, or even some program improvement schools, so there will never be a dull moment there. There are a variety of things that will utilize my skills, and I’m looking forward to providing services to a diverse group of schools.”
Seeking new challenges is a trademark of Gulek’s career. He initially came to Pleasanton after working for a much smaller district near Madison, Wis., where he was the director of assessment, data and accountability.
“Pleasanton is a wonderful community, and it’s been great working and living here,” Gulek said. “I’ll miss the personal connection I had in Pleasanton and all the great staff I’ve worked with and learned from.”
“We are happy for him and sad for us,” Casey said. “James will be a hard person to replace.”
