Meet Orchard Hills Elementary's New Principal: Pam Quitiquit

After spending 10 years as principal of , Pam Quitiquit will begin the 2011-12 school year as the new principal of . Novi Patch sat down with her to learn a few basic facts and to ask her about her plans for the year. 

Experience: Principal for the past 10 years at Novi Woods Elementary and a total of 33 years in education—27 of which have been in administration.

Family: Husband, Gary; son,Travis, 25; son, Brett, 23, as of next week

Residence: Milford

Hobbies: Gardening, golfing, exercising, Zumba 

Contact info: pquitiquit@novi.k12.mi.us or 248-449-1400

Novi Patch: Do you have any areas of focus as principal?

Pam Quitiquit: We're going to have a retreat on Aug. 29, on Monday, and that's what we're going to talk about as a staff. I very much believe in being a team and part of the team. Of course, our main focus will be student achievement—making sure our students are achieving academically, but also making sure that they're succeeding socially and emotionally, too.

Patch: Will anything be different at Orchard Hills?

Quitiquit: Yeah, you know, different staff, who I don't really know, but I have to say that they have been so welcoming and so warm to me. It's not as hard a transtion when you transition from one school to the next in the same district because you kind of know the players ... so the transition hasn't been really hard because some of the teachers, I don't know them, but I know who they are.

Of course, different parents, different students. I'm a very hands-on principal. At Novi Woods, I could pretty much tell you just about every student's name, so that for me is probably going to be really uncomfortable ... so getting to know the students, getting to know the families because I feel that when you are a part of any school, that it is a community. So I spend my first year being a very good listener and just getting to know my teachers really well, my families and most importantly, the kids.