The new superintendent of the Carpinteria Unified School District likens teachers to conductors, mentors and magicians.
Micheline Miglis came up with that theory when she was a teenager in Ventura County. One particular educator, a nun who taught Spanish at Santa Clara High School in Oxnard, even inspired her to join the ranks of those instilling knowledge.
“Teaching is an incredible talent,” Miglis said on a recent afternoon in the office she took over six months ago.
“It is an art. It is a science. We have tremendous teachers here in Carpinteria. I have the dream team here.”
As the highlighter of that talent, Miglis has been meeting and greeting with as many school district stakeholders as possible since her first day on the job last July.
She says she’s soft on people and hard on issues. Her “tight loose” leadership style leaves room for staff members to creatively tackle specific problems, she adds.
Miglis came to Carpinteria after serving more then two years as superintendent of the Plumas County and the Plumas Unified School District in Northern California — another small K-12 district.
She took over for interim Superintendent Jeff Chancer, who filled in briefly last year when longtime Superintendent Paul Cordeiro left to become superintendent of the Newhall School District.
Carpinteria’s focus on dual-language immersion attracted Miglis to the area, along with the coastal climate and a chance to come back and live in Oxnard, where she attended high school when her parents moved from New York in the 1970s.
Language is important to Miglis because she’s fluent in three: Greek, English and Spanish.
That’s in chronological order, since Miglis grew up learning the Greek alphabet from a grandmother who believed in the value of education.
So did her father and mother, migrants who worked in the restaurant industry and as a restoration artist, respectively.
“I’m a product of migrant parents, and they worked very hard,” said Miglis, a first-generation U.S. college student (her father earned degrees in Greece) who earned a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees from California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
While in college, Miglis traveled to teach in Tijuana, Mexico, which only solidified her itch to educate.
She started as an instruction assistant for migrant education at Oxnard High School, got her teaching credential and went on to spend time as both a Spanish and English teacher, principal and director of curriculum within Oxnard-area schools.
Miglis next spent about two years each as assistant superintendent of education services at the Silver Valley Unified School District in Yermo, a remote Mojave Desert community in San Bernardino County, and with the Plumas County school district, where she managed 2,400 students in eight schools and alternative education and opportunity schools.
“My focus was relationships,” she said, having walked the halls of all nine Carpinteria schools, which enroll some 2,300 students. “I love it here. This is home.”
Miglis wants to hone her support role and focus on wellness, promoting healthy eating, working with parent advisory councils and restoring trust with teacher union leadership.
Balancing the budget, meeting district goals and informing the community about infrastructure improvements under Measure U — a $90 million general obligation bond approved by voters in 2014 — were also on her check list.
Miglis, who enjoys yoga and her new standup paddle boarding hobby, said she’s looking forward to the dual-language immersion program that will soon launch a kindergarten and first grade class at Canalino School. There, students will have a chance to learn Spanish and English.
“It’s a really great fit,” she said. “I think we’re off to a good start.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Gina Potthoff can be reached at gpotthoff@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.