Profile
James Scoolis, Ed.D.
Principal, Monarch Grove Elementary School
Los Osos, California
Growing up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio in the sixties, James did not really imagine a career in education. After graduation from high school, his entire family moved to the Los Angeles area and James took advantage of the opportunity to be in the Golden State. He soon enrolled at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), playing guitar in several bands to make some extra money. While music was, and remains, a passion, he realized fairly early on that trying to make a living as a musician was probably not gong to be financially feasible. He graduated from UCSB with a double major in psychology and sociology with ideas of becoming a psychologist of some sort, but was soon lured into education by a college roommate. James soon found himself teaching third grade in an inner city Los Angeles school on a year round schedule to students who did not share his language. While his initial attempts at teaching were somewhat less than successful, he soon got the hang of it and quickly became an effective teacher.
It was during his first stint as a teacher that he had his primal experience as a technology-using educator. His school had recently received a computer lab full of Apple II machines. "I assisted the then newly assigned teacher-on-leave for computer education in getting the machines out of the box and set up", James remembers. "I was totally enthralled by the power of those (64kb) machines." James soon became an expert user of AppleWorks, Logo Writer and BASIC programming language. James still recalls Logo one of the best educational software programs.
After working in LAUSD for several years James taught school in the Santa Barbara area, earned an M.Ed. from UCSB in Educational Leadership as well as an administrative credential. He has worked in school administration since 1993 in San Luis Obispo County and earned a doctorate from the University of Southern California in 2000. In 1998, he was the first administrator in San Luis Obispo County to be certified as Level III in CTAP Standards.
His current position is principal at Monarch Grove Elementary School in Los Osos, CA which earned a California Distinguished School Award in 2002 and a National Blue Ribbon in 2003. The school has a powerful Novell network connected to a district wide fiber optic network that was paid for by a school improvement bond. Each classroom in grades 3-6 has networked computers available for student and teacher use, the school has a computer lab (currently being upgraded and modernized), and the library has another fourteen machines. The level of expertise with technology use on his staff is very high. On his current staff there are three Level III CTAP teachers and many other Level II and Level I certified teachers. "But," James reports, "keeping up with the replacement of aging hardware is a real challenge; a challenge for not only site administration, but certainly district administration and the board. This past summer the district undertook and extensive and wide ranging upgrade of school/district infrastructure—upgrading the servers and switches at most schools. We are currently upgrading our computer lab hardware.” Trying to stay current enough to run upgraded software reliably is a real focus and a real concern. James laments the planned obsolescence of hardware and software. "It is expensive and it is hard to keep up," he says.
In the meantime, this energetic and dynamic leader is focusing on using existing technology to better advantage. In particular, he wants to make it possible for every teacher to achieve a confident level of personal proficiency. Once that is accomplished he works with teachers so that they can use technology effectively as a teaching and communication tool. He also wants to make sure students are acquiring technological skills necessary for living in the 21st century. He is continually looking for ways to help and support his teachers to integrate technology into the standards-based curriculum at his school.
He has served on many district technology committees, participated in the development of two district technology plans, and led in-services for teachers and for administrators in his district and county. He has also published several articles and continues to be in the forefront of technology and curriculum integration in his region.
James lives in Pismo Beach, California with his wife, Betsy, (also a teacher) and two sons, Nikolas and Alex. He still enjoys playing guitar when he is not at work or spending time with his family. He performs with the House Red Band several times a month, a group of talented forty-something musicians who play rock classics and 60's rhythm and blues favorites. The House Red Band appropriately performs at many wineries in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. The band even has some devoted followers, dubbed "red heads." He also enjoys cooking, photography, and reading as well as watching or coaching his two sons in basketball.