 MHS Principal Mike Agnitch By Wendilyn Grasseschi
Mammoth Lakes Staff Writer
Mammoth High School Principal Michael Agnitch announced this week that he will be retiring at the end of the school year.
His decision leaves Mammoth Unified School District scrambling to fill not just the superintendent and elementary school position left vacant by Frank Romero’s termination, but yet another principal position.
Even as district officials wished him well and praised Agnitch’s service to the school, some in the community consider the situation an opportunity, more than a hardship.
“It’s a changing of the guard,” said Kathy Cage, a parent of a high school student. “I think it’s an opportunity to make some good changes.”
Agnitch is widely seen as a technically competent administrator, but his time at the high school has been marred by some controversy. Some parents have been vocal about their frustrations with dropping test score results, the loss of a senior football team this year, and what they say are a lack of “people skills” on the part of Agnitch.
Cage has been one of those parents. She believes Agnitch is a good administrator, but has said in past school board meetings that there are serious problems at the high school. On Feb. 3, she said she would have liked to see more communication between the high school administration and parents and community members and she said school spirit is “at zero.”
“There has to be some way to get the students to care about their test scores, to see them as relevant,” she said this week. “As is, they are fairly hostile to the administration and they think it’s a way to stick it to the administration.”
School board members were more restrained.
“It was his choice to retire,” said board member Greg Newbry.
Newbry has had his share of frustrations with the way the high school and the district are progressing.
“I think the opportunity to hire all these positions is very positive for the future.”
For his a part, Agnitch said he has no regrets.
“I’m not wild about announcing my retirement this early, but it’s good to give people time to begin looking for someone else as soon as possible,” he said.
“I think with the recent changes, with the donations by the Gregory family, with the new involvement of the Now Foundation (Mammoth Schools Now Education Foundation), we are at the edge of doing great things,” he said. He is most proud of the new Health Science Academy, a project that teacher Mike Boucher started with Agnitch’s support last fall.
“The students in that program have seen their grade points jump a half point average since the program began,” he said. “And some of them are getting 4.0s, and these are students that don’t usually get that kind of grade.”
The Health Science Academy has about two dozen students that are working their way toward careers in health care, using a professional mentoring program connected to local health care providers.
Agnitch’s retirement leaves the school district with an interesting choice. Normally, the superintendent is the one that hires school principals and, the district is moving on filling the elementary school principal vacated by Romero.
But in this case, the district has an interim superintendent, long-time local educator and former county school district superintendent and Mammoth school district superintendent Rich McAteer.
Does the school board allow an interim superintendent full rein in hiring new principals, or do they get more involved?
Gloria Vasquez, the chair of the board, stated in an e-mail that she wishes Agnitch well and thanked him for his service.
She added, “In an ideal situation, the new superintendent would be in charge of hiring for the principal openings, but because of the timing of all these openings, Mr. McAteer, as the interim superintendent, will have the responsibility for advertising, recruiting and interviewing the applicants. He will then bring his final choices to the Board.”
“Although Board members may sit on the interview panels and be involved at that level, it will be Mr. McAteer’s ultimate responsibility,” she wrote.
“We have every confidence in Mr. McAteer’s ability to perform these functions..”
Newbry agreed.
“If he wanted it, I’d jump on it,” he said. “He sees things, grasps idiosyncracies, that most people miss.”
Agnitch has 34 years of experience as an educator and has been the high school principal for two and a half years. He most recently served at Moorpark High School for 15 years, where he served as a school administrator with an emphasis on curriculum and testing.
Prior to that, he was a biology teacher, computer teacher, and district director of educational technology at Beverly Hills Unified School District for 15 years.
He lives in Mammoth with his wife, Pat and said he intends to stay — after a motorcycle ride to Alaska beginning on June 26.
“This is where we have always wanted to live,” he said. “I’ve been coming up here for more than 30 years.” |
