GILROY
– Four decades ago, Sal Tomasello graduated from Brownell Middle
School – Gilroy Unified School District’s only junior high back
then.
GILROY – Four decades ago, Sal Tomasello graduated from Brownell Middle School – Gilroy Unified School District’s only junior high back then. On Thursday, the 31-year veteran educator’s career came full circle when he was named principal of the district’s third middle school, Ascencion Solorsano, set to open its doors in August for the 2003-04 school year.
Tomasello, 53, formally takes over the $25 million, state-of-the-art campus March 1. He currently serves as assistant principal at South Valley Middle School.
“I’m so excited and eager to get this started. It’s a tremendous opportunity for a person in their career to open up a new school,” Tomasello said Friday.
Superintendent Edwin Diaz made the announcement Thursday at the regular meeting of the Gilroy Unified School District Board of Trustees.
“Sal is truly committed to Gilroy Unified, and he brings a variety of experience that will serve the new middle school well,” Diaz told trustees.
Tomasello has been assistant principal at South Valley the past three school years. He also served as Gilroy High athletic director for 16 years. He started his teaching career in 1972 at Brownell and has recently served on task forces to establish attendance boundaries, curriculum and other policies for GUSD’s three middle schools.
Details of Tomasello’s contract will be hammered out over the next two weeks. He is expected to be offered 20 to 40 percent of a full-time middle school principal’s contract for the first year, splitting time between his duties at South Valley and the new campus.
Full-time middle school principals earn between $86,600 and $103,500 a year, depending on experience. Additional compensation up to $1,500 is given for professional development and having advanced degrees.
GUSD is able to hire Tomasello part-time because Solorsano will house only incoming sixth-graders next year, phasing in seventh- and eighth-grades over the next two years. The phase-in plan is part of a controversial cost-saving measure by GUSD which will house Eliot Elementary School students until 2005, as their aging school gets demolished and rebuilt. Eliot Principal Diane Elia will be on the Solorsano site to carry out daily administrative duties.
Some parents contend Solorsano will not be a true middle school without seventh- and eighth-grade, so students should be given a choice whether they attend there or remain in their elementary school.
The district, however, is moving to a universal kindergarten through fifth-grade format for elementary schools and says housing Eliot kids at Solorsano saves taxpayers at least $1 million in these budget lean times.
A panel of GUSD administrators, parents, teachers and other staff last week interviewed Tomasello and one other undisclosed candidate. Only in-house candidates were allowed to apply.
After the interview process, which included simulated meetings and daily scenarios, candidates also met with Diaz and his assistant superintendents.
“What came out of that process loud and clear was Sal’s leadership skills, organizational skills and ability to communicate. He can see the big picture and distill it to its essential components,” said Linda Piceno, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources.
Initially, the Solorsano principal was to be hired by mid to late spring, but GUSD officials are trying to get a jump on staffing and curriculum implementation.
“The most critical thing for us is to identify who our students will be so we can begin meeting with them and their parents,” Tomasello said.
Tomasello said he expects to know which students will attend the school by March. Roughly 250 sixth-graders will attend Solorsano next year. The enrollment boundary for the school encompasses the perimeter of Gilroy and includes a core section of town north of 10th Street and south of Sixth Street, between Monterey Road from the east and Orchard Drive from the west.
Tomasello is charged with implementing a recently approved middle school curriculum which some parents believe cannot be effectively implemented given budget cuts and a lack of seventh- and eighth-grade students at Solorsano.
“We have a very strong model for our middle schools now and we plan to implement it to the fullest extent possible,” Tomasello said. “Our biggest challenge, and one of our next challenges, is hiring the staff to carry it out.”
