Principal Named For Rucker Elementary

From Gilroy Unified School District: The Gilroy Unified School District (GUSD) is pleased to announce that Jean WellsSouthland has been appointed as the new principal for Rucker Elementary School for the 2018- 19 school year by the Board of Education on May 17, 2018.

Dr. Deborah A. Flores Ph.D., Superintendent of the Gilroy Unified School District, remarked, “We are excited to welcome Jean Wells-Southland to our administrative team. She is an established leader in the Rucker community and has a wide array of professional experience as a classroom teacher, private sector consultant, and administrator throughout her career. I know she will hit the ground running to maintain the high level of academic rigor that is currently in place at Rucker.”

Ms. Wells-Southland returns to the Rucker campus as an administrator after serving as a Literacy Facilitator there from 2015-2018. Prior to her tenure in Gilroy Unified, she worked for Partners in School Innovation, where she collaborated with District and school leaders, and teachers to develop result-oriented cycles of inquiry and structures to support teacher professional learning. She was the principal of a secondary charter school (grades 6-12), Silicon Valley Flex Academy, from 2011-2014, and taught primary grades in Morgan Hill Unified School District, at Nordstrom Elementary and the Charter School of Morgan Hill from 2001-2011.
Ms. Wells-Southland and her husband have been Morgan Hill residents for 22 years and have three adult children and a grandchild.

When asked about how she felt about her new role, Ms. Wells-Southland shared, “From my first days at Rucker several years ago I knew that it was a special place to work. The staff, students and families are what have kept me at Rucker and are what makes taking on the new role of principal so exciting. I am looking forward to working with the Rucker community to build connections and strengthen our student outcomes for learning and social emotional growth.”

Photo courtesy GUSD