Q&A with San Marin High's New Principal

Megan Caldwell, a senior at San Marin High School, will contribute occasional stories to Novato Patch throughout the school year. This is her first assignment for Novato Patch.

Adam Littlefield said he is excited to be the newest member of the administration after being named as the replacement for the retired Principal Robert Vieth. Littlefield had been principal at Technology High School on the campus of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park for 15 years. He was introduced to the community at a meeting in June.

Q: Where did you grow up and go to school? Have you lived in the area your entire life?

A: I was raised in Antioch. I took a few community college classes at Los Medanos College, but I graduated from Antioch High School and I attended Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo. I majored in industrial arts and minored in music. I spent a significant amount of time in the music department there; I was band president there for a few years and I really particularly enjoyed that program there.

Q: What got you into the field of teaching technology?

A: I was fortunate to do my student teaching in a town just south of San Luis Obispo in a town called Arroyo Grande. I student-taught there and was hired as an electronics teacher there. I taught electronics for eight years and had the opportunity to develop a program through the approval of the superintendent, a model, an electronics program that was a lot different from the high school programs that had been developed at the time. It worked out pretty well, so well that the superintendent wanted to have a new science and technology program developed, and I was asked to be one of the leaders in developing that program. I taught and ran that program from three years.

I was at Arroyo Grande High School for 11 years and following that third year of the science and technology program an opening as an administrator came up and I applied for it and was selected as an administrator. I had earned my master’s degree in educational management from the University of LaVerne and I did that while I was teaching. So, I spent 12 years at Arroyo Grande High School as a teacher and administrator and during that 12th year my wife and I got married. She had been the basketball coach at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and there were some changes going on in the school administration there and they wanted a new women’s basketball coach. So, she still had the passion for coaching.

Q: How did you end up back in Northern California?

A: She was originally from Napa, so we decided that we were going to come back north. We settled in Petaluma in 1996, she was the basketball coach at Napa Valley College. I was an assistant principal at Rancho Cotate High School. I was in that role for about a year and a half when the decision was made to create a new high school, and so I became the coordinator of the high school program and later the principal of the program. It was a program located at Sonoma State University and it focused on science, math and engineering.

Q: How was the program set up there?

A: It had five different leaps, project based learning, integrated learning where students also did project that were a part of social studies, so it brought different curricular areas together: science, art, and social studies, the idea being that it would be relevant to students as they were learning those particular subject areas. Third, was use of technology.  Fourth was small school size. There were about 220 students and the fifth was empowering the students to manage their own learning. So, we did not have bells that changed from one class to another. The kids as ninth and tenth graders were allowed to go off campus at lunch while other students in the district at that level were not allowed to do that. We gave them some privileges that part of growing up is learning how to manage their time.

I was in that role for five years. I left to become an elementary school principal for four years, but then that school closed and then I went back to Tech High. I was there all together for 15 years. Now I am here and I am excited about being here.

Q: What made you decide that it was time for a change?

A: I worked at a school that was clicking really well. Students performed well on standardized tests. They did well in class. Kids were going to wonderful colleges. But, I was making a change with that, so part of it was looking for a place that wasn’t broken. I did not want to start fixing something. Interestingly, the counselor that I had at my previous school had children who went to school here. The connection was that I was hearing about San Marin from the perspective of a parent, but also a colleague. When I heard that Dr. Vieth was considering retiring, I started to look into San Marin more. Part of it is that I had gone to a lot of training over the years that really did not apply to the school that I was at, and things were already going well. I was looking for a challenge and working with great staff, working with wonderful students and trying to get better at what we do. That is why I am here. 

Q: Are you living in Rohnert Park still or are you moving to Novato to be closer to San Marin?

A: No. I live in Napa. My wife and I have two children, Kate and Grace. Kate just started her first day of high school, and so I have a different perspective as well. Not only am I the principal here but my own child is in high school right now, so I am going to be able to see things from the perspective of a principal but also a dad. My daughter Grace entered fifth grade today. We live in Napa and will continue to live in Napa.

Q: What are your long-term goals for San Marin?

A: One of the strategies that I have worked for me over the years as a principal is gathering as much information about the school prior to making any longterm goals. I can share with you one of my goals: Regardless where I am, it is to improve student achievement. So, it’s looking at what systems we have in place, working with our teaching staff and our classified staff, to understand what the cultures of our school are, but understanding what systems are in place and what we can do to improve.

I come from a place where there was a significant amount of technology and from my perspective right now. It is an area that we need to grow. I think there are some wonderful classes and programs that we have here that I see as serving as a foundation for our next step, whatever that may be. I am going to continue that conversation with students, with families, with parents, with our staff. One very important thing to me is that we have a shared vision of what this school looks like and all of the people, the stakeholders, need to be a part of that.

Q: When you say “student achievement,” what do you mean by that?

A: I see that as a number of different ways. I see it as how students perform on standardized tests. I see it in terms of grades. I see it also as attendance and also as students leave San Marin High what are the students’ next steps? Are we preparing them for college or whatever their next step is? When I look at student achievement or the whole learning process, it’s about making sure the students are learning and hopefully developing a passion for learning so that one day, if they leave our school, they are able to take the next step and be prepared for that.

Q: What about your short-term goals? What do you hope to achieve in the first semester?

A: I know that from my previous experience is that successful organizations require the convergence of three areas. One of those is relationships; another is communication and the third is shared vision. I am going to be working really hard, and it is not to imply that those are not already in place, but those are important to me. I am going to be developing relationships with students and certainly with staff and families. I want to make sure that whatever we are communicating to our student population, to our community is the right information. I am expecting all of us to come together and have a shared vision of where we are going to go.

I do not know if this is where we are going to go or not, but Novato High School has a program, a magnet program for that school that attracts students to that school. I wouldn’t be surprised if we had something — perhaps not a — something else that we might have here that might attract students. Not that it is not already happening, but programs like that tend to attract students here that would not necessarily go to school here.

Q: Budget cuts have affected San Marin in the Past few years, especially this year with 20 classes cut. Do you have any plans that would help us to avoid that again?

A: I can share with you the biggest change that takes place due to declining enrollment and what staffing that we have. I think one of my challenges would be working with our middle schools and our elementary schools to help families understand the value of our school. We do lose students to other schools from Sinaloa that do not come to San Marin. I want to be able to try and work with those school staffs and those families that are making those decisions. I want to invite them here and take a look at our school and our programs. If they make that decision to make that change and go to another school, I can’t control that, but I want them to see what we have here. I think to answer your question: The more students that we have here, that is going to have an impact on how many courses we offer.

Q: San Marin has lost a few teachers to other districts. How do you plan on keeping them at San Marin?

A: One of the things I am going to focus on is trying to honor our teachers as much as possible. I can’t pay them any more, but I can acknowledge the good work that they do and I am going to do my best to do that.

Q: Music and drama are a big part of San Marin and have been affected by budget cuts. How would you show support for the arts so they are affected by more cuts?

A: I have a strong interest in the arts as I mentioned and I have a credential in music, and that is one of the reasons that brought me here. My previous school did not have a music program or even a lot of other programs. In fact that is what makes this school such a comprehensive school.  I think one of the things here is gathering as much information as possible. I plan to meet with the booster organizations and the teachers and to figure out what is it that we have here now and what … they want to have here.

I had the opportunity during the summer to watch one of the plays (from Marin Summer Theater at the school’s Emily Gates Student Center) even though it wasn’t part of San Marin, but I had the chance to watch the theater and it was great to be able to see our facilities being used for a program like that. I think one of my responsibilities is to work with our community, including our booster programs, the music program, the drama program, to develop a plan for improvement in terms of funding and if there already is a plan in place and I don’t know that yet. If there is a plan in place, I plan on doing my best to support that plan.

Q: For the past three years San Marin has been on a modified block schedule, but this year we will return to a traditional schedule because of teacher concern that block schedule was ineffective. Are you in support of the decision?

A: I have worked at sites that have a block schedule and I have worked at sites with a modified block, and I have had students in a school that is more traditional. … My opinion really depends on what the needs are of the students at that particular school. The ones that were block, there were certain teachers who really liked it because it allowed an extended period of time for students to work on projects. But then there are also some subject areas and some teachers that prefer to see students every day because students need to develop skills over a period of time. Sometimes, in my experience, those have been math teachers and foreign language teachers. They want to see — and even music teachers — they want students to practice every day, they want students to speak the language every day, they want students to compute every day. It’s not everybody, but that is certainly my experience.

There is also value in having that extended period of time so teachers have time to work on problems and projects that are going to take more than 52 minutes. … This year we will be looking at the schedule again and it will be something that we will be in conversation about. Novato High School is on a block schedule this year. One of the things, as we look at resources, is that in the past some schools will share teachers. So they will work part time at this school and part time at another school. It is a little more challenging to do that when (the schools) don’t have the same schedule.