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At least four local schools will have new leaders in the fall, with the Mountain View Whisman School District moving this month to hire principals for Bubb and Mistral elementaries.
That comes on top of principal vacancies at Vargas Elementary and Graham Middle schools, where the district announced its permanent picks earlier this spring.
Claudia Olaciregui at Mistral and Jane Jung at Bubb have resigned from their leadership positions but will continue to serve until the end of the school year. This month, the district announced plans to make Margaret Poor the new leader of Bubb and bring on Gustavo Estrada as the principal of Mistral.
Poor and Estrada will be on the job starting on July 1, according to district spokesperson Shelly Hausman.
Poor currently serves as a teacher on special assignment supporting English learners in the district. She served as the interim principal of Theuerkauf Elementary School in spring 2024, a Mountain View Whisman newsletter said. Her experience also includes teaching at the elementary level in the district.
Estrada is working as a teacher on special assignment as well, but in the Santa Clara Unified School District. His work centers on helping with school operations, providing instructional coaching and disciplining students, the newsletter said. Prior to this, he acted as a bilingual and general education elementary school teacher for two decades in Santa Clara County and Tucson, Arizona.
Olaciregui has served as the principal of Mistral since 2020, Hausman told the Voice. When asked why she is leaving, Hausman said that “she is moving on to pursue new professional opportunities.” Bubb’s current principal, Jung, has led the school since 2024. Hausman gave the exact same reason for Jung’s departure.
In April, the district named the two new principals slated to take over at Graham and Vargas, starting next school year. Both schools experienced mid-year leadership changes, when their principals stepped away from their roles several months into the school year and district administrators took over on an interim basis.
Aimee Malcolm is set to fill the vacant position at Graham and Carly Sturm at Vargas. Both women have over a decade of educational leadership experience. Malcolm currently serves as an assistant principal in Burlingame and Sturm is a principal in Sunnyvale, according to an April email that Superintendent Jeff Baier sent to families and staff.
Mountain View Whisman also announced this month that it has hired Van Nguyen as its maintenance, operations and transportation director. She has held this same role in the Milpitas Unified School District since 2023, the newsletter said.
In other staff transition news, Karin Jinbo’s title will change from director of health and wellness to director of student services and wellness, and Tara Watan, the director of early learning and after school programming will become the director of early learning.
Watan will still work with transitional kindergarten and the special education preschool. She will also lead the Mountain View Whisman preschool program, since director Terri Kemper is retiring this school year. Watan has been providing oversight for after school programming while Geoff Chang serves as the interim principal of Graham. Once Chang returns to his role as director of federal, state, and strategic programs, he will reassume this responsibility.
I want there to be at most two principal changes per school year. The merry-go-round needs to slow down. The constant turnover does not reflect well on our district.
Their boss changed (the Supt) so it’s not surprising some are leaving. If the guy that hired me left, I would probably leave too.