Emilio Handall had no first-day nerves as the new school year began in the Guadalupe district he now leads.
“For me, it was an exciting opportunity,” he said of the chance to meet parents, students and community members on the first day of the new school year Thursday..
He’s not the only change for the district.
The new school year finds fifth-graders moved into a modular building at the now-named Kermit McKenzie Intermediate School from Mary Buren Elementary School.
“It was quite a feat with a tight window, very little to no room for error, and we were able to pull it off,” Handall said.
The coming years will include construction of a new junior high school campus for the growing city set to get 800 new homes in the Pasadera development.
Handall, who is married and has four children, started on July 1 as superintendent of the Guadalupe Union School District, home to approximately 1,200 transitional kindergarten through eighth-grade students.
He replaced Ed Cora, who was hired to lead the Santa Paula Unified School District.
Handall has deep roots in Santa Barbara County education, most recently working at the one-campus Vista Del Mar Union School District, with roughly 70 students, in Gaviota.
Previously, he served several stints, including as principal and then assistant superintendent of elementary education services, in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
The educator’s own negative time as a student feeling disengaged from the lessons motivated him during his career.
“I didn’t have the best experience in public education,” he said. “The only thing that kept me in school was sports, and were it not for a coach of mine, I probably wouldn’t have finished high school.”
After graduating with the Carpinteria High School class of 1988, Handall enlisted in the Army working in communications, including an assignment stationed in Germany at the time of the Berlin Wall’s fall and the end of the Soviet Union.
A boss who taunted Handall about having a religious studies degree from UCSB provided motivation to return to school believing he was as smart as that guy.
He enrolled in Santa Barbara City College, and the man who barely graduated from Carpinteria High transferred to UCLA where he majored in history.
But an education class took him to Garfield High School, where a teacher interrupted Handall’s presentation on options for college, saying the talk did not pertain to her students.
“It so infuriated me,” he said, adding that he refused to change his presentation.
The experience spurred Handall to enter public education, seeing a need for someone with his perspective.
He felt compelled to ensure schools fit the needs of students at all levels —academically, socially, culturally — with staff members who recognize youths’ potential.
“They’re different from other students, but that’s all it is. They just have to take a different pathway to success,” he said.
“And being able to navigate that myself, I knew it was possible,” Handall said. “So when we have English leaders, or we have students who come from poverty, I see attorneys, I see astronomers. I see scientists, I see all the things that I know that they can become, rather than what the general society sees when they see our students.”
Handall went on to earn master’s degrees from the University of LaVerne and Azusa Pacific University, and ultimately earned his doctoral degree in educational leadership from Concordia University, Chicago.
Looking back, he wonders how that kid who barely graduated from high school earned bachelor, master’s and doctorate degrees.
“How did someone not see that talent in me as I was growing up?”
Meanwhile, to fill Handall’s prior employer, Vista Del Mar Union School District has hired William Banning to serve as interim superintendent/principal of the Vista de Las Cruces School.
Banning retired at the end of June 2017 after five years as the superintendent of Goleta Union School District.
However, his career in public education began in 1978 as a junior high school music teacher and he held assorted jobs through the years.
Vista De La Cruces students return to school for a new year Aug. 16.
— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
