Principal Spotlight: Jacqueline O'Sullivan

After six years and several awards at nearby , Jacqueline O'Sullivan is ready to bring her expertise to where she takes the reigns as the school’s new principal.

While O'Sullivan said that she is building on the improvements left for her by the previous principal, she also has her own unique goals, including working with the community to build stronger bonds and improving her new school's reputation.

Redondo Beach Patch sat down with O'Sullivan and asked her about her time with Birney, outlook for Washington, and more.

Redondo Beach Patch: What is your educational background?

O'Sullivan: I started teaching in '89 in LAUSD and taught for three years, but decided to switch to a business career. I came back to teaching as an assistant principal at Lawndale before becoming the principal at Birney Elementary School. This is my seventh year in the school district; I was at Birney Elementary School for six.

RB Patch: You won several awards within the last year while at Birney. Could you tell us about those?

O'Sullivan: Last year I won the Administrator of the Year award for Redondo Beach. Then I won the regional award for Elementary School Principal of the Year from the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). From there I won the for the state of California, that's this year. In November, I'll receive my award in Sacramento. If you win the regional award, you're automatically put in the running for the state award.

It's interesting because at Birney, it was not that hard to do great things. We went from being kind of a school where people didn't want to go to a place where people were on the waiting list to get in. The staff there is just willing to do whatever it takes. It's not really an award for me; it's really an award for the Birney community."

RB Patch:  Why did you leave Birney?

O’Sullivan:  It was time for a change for me, I wanted to grow. While I was with Birney their Academic Performance Index (API) score grew 106 points—it's now 905. Not that you're ever finished as an administrator, but I just felt like it was time for me to move on and this opportunity came up. I've always had my eye on Washington and it's a great school with a really warm community.

RB Patch: What were some of the changes you noticed when you became principal at Washington?

O’Sullivan: First of all, it's a lot bigger. This school is huge. The physical school itself is three times the size of Birney, so there’s a lot more space here. The staff and the community are similar. When I asked the students during one of our assemblies to tell me something about Washington Elementary School, they said on separate occasions that "Washington's like a big family." That's really great that kids can feel that.

RB Patch: What qualities and skills do you think a child must have upon completion of elementary school?

O'Sullivan: In Redondo Beach, we are really focused on the whole child. At Washington and most of the other elementary schools in the area, we don't just focus on the academics. We want kids to leave with all the skills they need to be good academic scholars, but we also want them to be critical thinkers, to be kind, and we want to teach them values of having a healthy social and emotional life. 

We have a lot of programs in place. We have a great partnership with Beach Cities Health District, they provide nutrition classes, a garden program, and physical education. We have counseling grants that provide the emotional health aspect. We also have a lot of academic programs as well as intervention programs. Our PTA really steps in and helps us when we can’t do everything ourselves economically.

RB Patch: What are some of your goals for Washington Elementary School?

O'Sullivan: One thing I really want to do is work with the community to change some of the perception here. In a community like Redondo Beach, people will look at the API scores of a school, and then they judge that school. At Washington, the API went up 57 points this year, so we're only nine points away from [Birney’s] 905. We're so close. When you're all close to 900 as we are in Redondo Beach, it's a great problem to have, but I want to change the perception that maybe this isn’t the best school to go to

Along with Anthony Taranto ['s new principal] we have been working together to go out to the community and meet them and tell them about the schools and the great programs. We want it to be like a K-8 community here.

At Birney, we did the Growing Educators program, which is professional coaching [for teachers], and they're here today because they're starting at Washington. You have to build strong relationships among the community: the students, the teachers, the parents. That already exists here, so I'm going to build on that.