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New MHS principal fulfills 42-year goal of living in Mammoth |
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Sunday, 26 August 2007 |
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By Lara Kirkner
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
He may not be bilingual, but at least he already has a place to live in Mammoth, which is more than many new employees to the Mammoth Unified School District can say.
Mammoth High School’s new principal Mike Agnitch comes to town from Moorpark, Calif., where he worked as Assistant Principal for the high school there for 15 years.
He has a long history in education, as well as a long history with Mammoth. He first visited the area in 1965 and has wanted to live here ever since.
“I thought about coming up here and working for a year before I went to college and again after I graduated from college, but I chickened out both times,” Agnitch says.
He finally got the nerve after he burned out on his first job out of college, which was with the pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp and Dohme, and came to Mammoth to try out for a position as a ski instructor.
“They were hiring about 25 guys and many more showed up,” Agnitch says. Sadly, his move to Mammoth was not meant to be just yet, and he didn’t get the job.
Agnitch went on to work as an assistant to a science teacher at Beverly Hills High School where he discovered his love of teaching, so he started his credential program at USC while continuing to work at Beverly Hills High. After the biology teacher at Beverly Hills High left, Agnitch took over his position and spent 15 years there. He migrated along the way into teaching technology in the classroom for teachers.
Agnitch was also an assistant principal for a K-8 school for two years before he ended up in his dream locale of Mammoth Lakes. Luckily for him, he and his family, wife Pam and son Matthew, had already purchased a home in Mammoth in 1996.
Now that he has arrived, Agnitch plans to begin his career at MHS by listening to and learning his staff, who already know the ropes, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have ideas up his sleeve. Agnitch’s two main focuses will be on increasing teacher effectiveness and increasing student achievement.
According to the school’s Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) results, too many students are not succeeding, which is not a problem unique to MHS. According to Agnitch, just giving a student a failing grade is not doing the trick.
“We need a lot more parent involvement,” he says.
Agnitch plans to have tutoring available at lunch and after school, and hopes to eventually give parents access to online information about their children. Essentially he wants parents to have access to everything that a teacher has access to in relation to their children.
“I want to be able to call a parent and tell them, for example, ‘your child is missing two assignments—if you can guarantee that he or she will turn them in on Monday, we will give them half credit,’” Agnitch adds. With his vast technological background, Agnitch will rely most heavily on online outreach once it is up and running.
In regard to his not being bilingual but still trying to accomplish better school/parent relationships, Agnitch plans to pay one of his bilingual teachers extra in order to work as an interpreter during parent/school conferences.
Still in the moving process from Moorpark to Mammoth, Agnitch was to finally meet his entire staff last Tuesday, Aug. 21, although he had already sent a letter out to everyone after he got the job as principal in mid-June. He claims he is most looking forward to the tight, family-oriented atmosphere of Mammoth Lakes and will rely on the teacher leaders to guide the school until he gets into the full swing of things.
With an estimated enrollment of 320-330 students for the 2007/08 school year, Agnitch’s biggest thrill will be having the opportunity to learn every student’s name.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 02 September 2007 )
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