By Alex Wyckoff
Staff Writer
Mira Costa Vice Principal Paula Hart announced on March 8 that she will resign from her position at the end of the school year and hopes to return to Costa as a biology teacher in the 2012-13 school year.
Hart says she ultimately came to her decision to leave her current position because of her strenuous work schedule that conflicted with all of her responsibilities as a single parent.
“I know that she felt extremely overworked because she’s doing the jobs of three people,” Vice Principal Jennie Wright said. “I do not know how long she’s been considering stepping down, but I know that the job that she has done for us in these last couple of years has been phenomenal.”
Hart sent an email to the entire Costa staff on March 8 to inform the staff of her decision to step down as vice principal.
“I’ve been thinking about doing this for a really long time,” Hart said. “But I only submitted my decision a short while ago. I still have to run it through the board, and it had to be submitted by March 15.”
Hart’s career at MBUSD started in 2007 as a vice principal at Manhattan Beach Middle School. She moved to Mira Costa a year later, in 2008, and has been a vice principal for the school since.
“She [Hart] has worked tirelessly and thanklessly as a school leader, especially in athletics and facilities,” Principal Ben Dale said. “She will still be a valued Mustang and [also a valued] resource for students in the future.”
Of the duties that are shared amongst the vice principals, Hart has been in charge of many jobs around Mira Costa campus, including security, construction management and athletics.
“I do three full-time jobs here,” Hart said. “And I’m a single parent. It’s not being overworked. It’s just a matter of my kids being a priority. They need to come first. I need to be there for them.”
The administration has yet to choose Hart’s replacement. Wright thinks that finding a replacement for Hart could potentially be a difficult process.
“She has such a wealth of experience and knowledge,” Wright said. “Anyone that comes in to replace her will have a lot to fill for; it’ll be very difficult for a replacement. I hope they bring in more than one person for this.”
Hart is optimistic about becoming a biology teacher. She brings over a decade of previous teaching experience to the Costa campus. Although she has no tenure as a Costa certificated staff member, Dale confirmed that she has permanent employment rights due to her extensive time in the district as an administrator.
“I’m really looking forward to hopefully working with the people in the Science Department here,” Hart said. “They’re really great professionals. I have been teaching for 16 years. I have taught everywhere from the elementary school level to the college level, and teaching is just like getting back onto a bike again after a while.”
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