September 11, 2006

School Days

The new school year brings changes to Sakamoto and other campuses

By Candy Richter
Editor

As August came to a close, the leaves weren’t the only brightly scurrying shapes along San Jose’s sidewalks. Oak Grove, San Jose Unified, Morgan Hill Unified and East Side Union school districts all welcomed students on opening days that varied from Aug. 23 to Aug. 29.

Sakamoto Elementary School, new Principal, Julie Hing-Pacheco, outlined her plans for the school year and enthusiastically shared some of her favorite student mantras: Is it safe? Is it courteous? Am I doing my personal best? Hing-Pacheco looks forward to building a strong community at Sakamoto as well as working with the staff to inspire student learning.

At Sakamoto Elementary, returning students greeted old friends while new faces took in the sights at the Shadeland campus. Among those new to Sakamoto this year is Principal Julie Hing-Pacheco. A veteran of OGSD for over 20 years, Hing-Pacheco’s roster of experience within the district’s campuses is almost as varied as the number of school sites themselves.

Hing-Pacheco began her career in OGSD at Dickenson School as a Special Day Class instructor with a Masters’ degree in speech pathology and audiology from San Jose State University. Her assignments then took her to Anderson until a devastating fire placed her at Baldwin under then Principal Manny Barbara who Hing-Pacheco described as “a very fine example.”

When the pre-school program moved to Taylor and expanded, Hing-Pacheco followed, and stayed at that site for several years as the part-time elementary speech therapist, sharing her time with Davis Intermediate School. Hing-Pacheco collaborated with the kindergarten through eighth grade faculties providing language lessons.

At that time Hing-Pacheco became involved with district-level work helping with facilitation and conduct leadership training.

Kindergarten students line up awaiting their teacher and the start of their first day of school.

She followed that as a Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment coach for the district, training new teachers and eventually moved to the OGSD Human Resources department in teacher recruiting. Hing Pacheco returned to campus life as vice principal of Miner Elementary followed by her four-year tenure as principal of Edenvale Elementary.

“When I got to Edenvale it was on Program Improvement,” said Hing Pacheco. “And then we were awarded the California Distinguished School.”

The following year, Edenvale was reviewed by the California Compliance Review and received high marks for improvement.

“[Principal Hing-Pacheco] has done a terrific job at whatever position she has been in,” said Oak Grove School District Superintendent Manny Barbara. “She did a terrific job at Edenvale, I think the results speak for themselves, and I think she’s going to do an equally terrific job at Sakamoto. She is an excellent match.”

Now that she has begun her stay at Sakamoto, Hing-Pacheco sees some universal similarities that all caring parents share.

Sakamoto fourth grader Jonathan Gabbert is delighted to have Mrs. Love for his teacher again. Mrs. Love, who taught third grade last year, is teaching a third/fourth grade combo class this year.

“All parents want great teachers,” she said. “All parents want to create a safe environment; any advocacy they do is very similar because they all love and care about their children.”

Hing-Pacheco wants to continue the environment of a strong community going at Sakamoto. “This is a school where we can definitely keep soaring, she said”

Part of Hing –Pacheco’s unique approach to maintaining a positive outlook is her “mantras.”

Hing-Pacheco will ask students “How’s it going?’ and students will answer “Unbelievable!” She explained that getting students to buy into the positive question and response was easy – once they understood how important it was to project the right attitude to those around them. Hing-Pacheco would use the example of a team captain or CEO asking two different people how their day was going. “If one person answered ‘fine’ or ‘good’ and the other person answered ‘unbelievable!’ which person do you think they would choose?”

Hing Pacheco explained that these affirming questions and statements were developed from similar tools that she garnered from past mentor and former Edenvale principal, Meril Smith and her own childhood at San Francisco’s Marconi Elementary. These tools include; asking yourself is it safe? Is it courteous? Is it my personal best? Then adding, for whom am I doing this? For myself, for my family, for my community.

Hing-Pacheco gives some of the credit for her excellent leadership skills to her 10-year-old daughter. “She always reminds me about the child’s perspective.”

These kindergarten students were delighted with their new "big-kid" backpacks. Photos by Lorraine Gabbert

In the wake of the STAR and API data, Hing-Pacheco wants to focus on Sakamoto’s subgroups using the cycle of inquiry to determine where the challenge areas are and address those students’ needs.

“The teachers are very excited; we’re enrolling the leadership team to help out with staff development.”

On the community side, the focus, as reflected in the OGSD five-year plan, is on site safety. While this is not a problem at Sakamoto, Hing-Pacheco pointed out that in an automobile-centric environment, a proactive approach is often beneficial. She plans to meet with the school’s parent groups to discuss needs in that area in the coming weeks.

“[Safety is] our number one goal we have throughout the district,” said Hing-Pacheco. ”So I wanted to work with the community; what is it that they hope and dream that is safe for their kids, what does it look like and sound like, and then let’s do it.”