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Big administrative changes are underway in the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District after the school board voted Monday to hire two new principals.
The district hired Kip Glazer, principal of San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara, to be the next principal of Mountain View High School. Glazer will replace Michael Jimenez, who has served a short two-year stint as the school’s top administrator during the pandemic.
District officials also named Suzanne Woolfolk, currently an assistant Principal at Los Altos High School, to be the next principal at Alta Vista High School, the district’s continuation program. Alta Vista’s long-time principal, Bill Pierce, announced in February that he would be retiring this year after leading the school since 1996.
The new hires mark a change of pace for the school district, which has a history of long tenures and little in the way of administrative turnover.
Glazer has spent the last three years as a principal in Santa Barbara, before that serving as an assistant principal of La Cañada High School in La Cañada, California. Before that, she had spent 13 years in the classroom as a teacher, according to a statement from the district.
Glazer, who was born in South Korea, is fluent in both Korean and English. Her career has focused on the power of technology in education, with past jobs that have included coaching teachers on the use of instructional tech such as Google Apps for Education – which has since become a common tool in the classroom – and she has written extensively about the use of artificial intelligence in learning technology.
Glazer taught herself how to code and has developed a coding class available on the platform CodeHS, according to the district, and did her dissertation for her doctoral degree on “game-based” learning.
“I am thrilled to be selected as the next Principal for Mountain View High School,” Glazer said in a statement. “I am excited to learn more about this great school and its community that clearly believes in investing in education.”
Woolfolk, who has been assistant principal at Los Altos since 2014, will be the head of not only Alta Vista High School but also the district’s alternative programs. She will serve as the district’s director of Middle College, Freestyle Academy and the “College Now” program.
Woolfolk received a bachelor’s degree in Development Psychology, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a master’s degree in Education from Stanford University. She also has a master’s degree in Education Administration from San Francisco State University.
Before coming to Los Altos, Woolfolk worked as assistant principal at San Mateo High School and Burlingame High School, and spent five years teaching Spanish and English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. During her tenure in public education, Woolfolk has had “extensive” experience as a special education administrative liaison, according to the district.
Superintendent Nellie Meyer said both Glazer and Woolfolk have “exemplary” track records for championing educational opportunities for students and the need to actively work towards “inclusive school cultures.” She noted that Glazer has a reputation as a strong school leader, and that Woolfolk already has a strong track record in the district.
“Suzanne has worked tirelessly with the leadership classes and our ASB students and, throughout the pandemic, worked exhaustively to help students continue to build community and thrive academically even in a virtual setting,” Meyer said.
