June 22, 2007

Principal's first year at Cottonwood Canyon Elementary filled with shining moments

By Jeanie Corral
Reporter/Columnist

After his first year as principal of Cottonwood Canyon Elementary School, Preston Perez, 43, says his overall assessment of the school is simply “fantastic.”

“I’ve been truly blessed to be here. Normally, when a new principal comes to a school, it takes time to adjust. Teachers, parents, students all have to get used to a new face and for me from day one I received nothing but overwhelming support,” he says.

Preston, who earned his B.A. and M.S. from California State University, Fullerton, clearly loves what he does with elementary age students. He came from being an assistant principal in the Buena Park School District where he spent one year as a middle school principal and four years in an elementary setting. When asked why elementary level, he explains that for many principals, the length of time in elementary, from kindergarten through 5th grade allows teachers and administrators to watch the growth and see how the development and implementation of programs impacts student learning and overall achievement.

“We can develop programs, and that length of time helps us to assess and modify programs to meet the students needs.

You know you are making a difference,” he says.

Currently Cottonwood Canyon, which opened in the 2000-01 school year, has 940 students from kindergarten through 5th grade. The basic demographics of the school has a little under 10 percent as English Language learners, and a bit over 10 percent are Hispanic while more than 70 percent of the rest of the student body is designated as “white.” Other minority groups comprise less than five percent.

This next year, he is working with the teaching staff in designing a collaborative model that will work at all grade levels to incorporate special education students along with mainstream students. Cottonwood has a program for students with autism, and Preston Perez says the research clearly shows that when students can interact with each other the scores for both groups tend to go up in the world of high stake testing required by the state and federal government mandates.

“I believe it will be very exciting to be part of this and to implement this approach,” he says.

The principal says that this first year has been filled with several shining moments that have been very significant. Part of it is due to parental support and involvement; the other is having several staff members work together to create an intervention program that had a marvelous impact on students. “These teachers ran the programs and did all of it voluntarily and went to training and worked in concert to make it happen,” he says.

Another of his examples was the special celebration for student success. It involves a necklace given to students where they can get various tags to attach to the chain. This year he and the staff “hyped it up” by awarding tags for ethical values, behavior modification, leadership, honor roll, academic awards and the like. According to him, the students bought into the idea and worked hard to earn various tags that demonstrated their accomplishments.

Currently, he is working in a doctoral program at CSUF and UCI in educational administration and instructional leadership. His dissertation is called “The disproportionate occurrence of low academic achievement, grade level retention and dropping out among Hispanic youth,” a mouthful to say. However, as part of a Hispanic family where he has seen some of the ramifications of not getting an education, he feels this study will be beneficial to educators.
He says he can see several theoretical links that are generational in nature, and he points out it is more complex than most people think. There are so many factors in the superficial and cultural beliefs, he would like to get down to the deepest levels of root cause because, as he states, “I have seen kids with outstanding potential quit and I want to know what drove some to stick it out and others to quit.”

The principal is also a delegation leader in the People to People program and has taken students touring to such countries as Australia, New Zealand, France, England, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and places in Central and South America. In his office hangs California Senate recognition of his commitment to the program.

When he isn’t involved in educational pursuits, he enjoys water sports such as boating and water skiing.

Preston Perez says he is looking forward to working with parents and students next year and adds that he and his staff will be doing all they can to make education at Cottonwood Canyon Elementary School exciting and meaningful.