By Russle Wettle,
Business Editor.
On Jan. 30, Santa Rosa High School welcomed Dr. Kimberly Clissold as the permanent principal, after a tenure as interim this year. With rampant budget issues and declining enrollment among many other issues, our school is a challenge to run properly, but Dr. Clissold has a strong idea of what her policies will be moving forward.
Dr. Clissold previously served as our principal from 2018 until 2023, before leaving to work at Tamalpais High School. She succeeded Dr. Monica Fong last year as our interim principal, and ran successfully to officially lead our school.
Some of Dr. Clissold’s goals as principal of the school are to work closely with ASB and foster a connection with the student body. She loves the SRHS traditions, and would like to find out what events and celebrations students are interested in doing. Our student senate is another resource that Dr. Clissold intends to utilize, and is working to figure out ways to effectively work with them to improve our school. One important tradition and topic is allowing students to paint their parking spots, and she wants it to be student-run by ASB.
Many people are worried that traffic issues will continue making driving near the school slow and infuriating. Drop-off and pick-up times block all of the roads surrounding SRHS, and a lot of students are worried that new construction and site changes will make this issue more prominent. Dr. Clissold reports that she will be working with contractors to make plans that will limit annoying traffic.
In recent years, the gates to the student parking lot have been a contentious issue; gates being locked during the school day makes it difficult for students to leave if they have an appointment or free period. “We do have a certain time where we are advertising those gates as closed versus open. We will revisit other options such as having someone there to open it, but will likely continue with advertised times,” said Dr. Clissold. Free periods themselves are another important topic for students who are ready for graduation, and Dr. Clissold mentioned that she wants to make sure everyone has the best schedule possible for upcoming years and will not be abolishing midday free periods, contrary to rumor.
The procedure regarding leaving classes is just as important as leaving the school. SRHS has been struggling to decide between using student IDs or the Minga app to log where students are and permit them entry into classes. Dr. Clissold sees the benefits of both options. “I’m open to using the Minga app, as it has more applications than we’re using now,” said Clissold, mentioning that she intends to test out both to try and fine-tune a solution in the future.
One of the largest questions that students have is how Dr. Clissold will approach student discipline, especially regarding tardies. “The expectation is that all students are on time and come to class on time. We discuss how to give those students support to help them get to class on time,” said Dr. Clissold. Instead of just punishing students, she intends to find ways to motivate and enable students who are having a hard time to be able to be in class on time, every day.
Dr. Clissold is committed to improving SRHS and working with the student body to move forward as a school.
