Meet Jennifer Gage: New Garvanza Elementary School Principal

will begin the 2012-13 school year with a new principal, Jennifer Gage.

Gage, 46, has worked in the Los Angeles Unified School District since 1993. In her most recent assignment as a Bridge Coordinator at Erwin Elementary School, Gage was responsible for leading professional development of teachers, monitoring special education programs and supporting the training of parents to foster at-home learning.

Before that, Gage worked as an instructional coach and literacy coach. Gage also spent nine years as a classroom teacher at 4th Street Elementary School in East Los Angeles.

She is a first-time principal.

Born and raised in Monterey Park, Gage received her undergraduate degree at California State University Long Beach. She later attended Cal State Los Angeles, where she received her Masters of math education. She received her educational administration certification from Cal State Northridge.

Gage will take over for previous Garvanza Elementary School Principal Juan Gonzalez, who led the school during a period of sustained academic success. Garvanza is designated as a California Distinguished School, and has boasted Academic Performance Index (API) scores above 800 since 2007.

She spoke to Patch on Wednesday about her new assignment.

What have you learned about the school since you arrived on July 19?

Well, we know it's a California Distinguished School. I've had nothing but a warm welcome from the staff and teachers at Garvanza. We are beginning to prepare and set goals for next year. I have not met any of the students or the families because school hasn't started yet. I think I'm going to enjoy it, even though being an administrator is hard work, it can be very rewarding at the end of the day.

What are some of the main challenges you're going to face at the school?

One challenge would be, whenever there's a change of leadership, some people are hesitant of the change. It makes people feel uneasy. What I plan to target first, is to address that change is good and sometimes change can lead to bigger and better things. With the educational situation, budget cuts are really hurting, so we have to wear more hats and do more duties than we're usually used to. So it's about coming to together as a team and working together and supporting each other.

How are you preparing to deal with such a small amount of financial resources?

We have to be strategic about what we do with the funds that we are allocated and make the most out of it, which goes back to collaboration and team building. If the school can all come to a consensus and agree that they want to target specific things, then that's where we can put our resources. It's just about being strategic and knowing what you want to target. That's not something I'll decide on my own, because I have a whole team of teachers that are going to help. I plan to work collaboratively with everybody.

What's something that you'd like the community to know about you as an educator and an administrator?

I'm very fair, I'm very thorough and I've been successful in all previous assignments.