Veteran Educator Returns
to Burton School District as Summit Charter Academy
Redwood Campus Principal
The Burton School District is pleased to announce the
appointment of veteran educator David Huchingson to serve as principal of
the Summit Charter Academy Redwood campus. Huchingson returns to the Burton
district after a two-year stint as principal at Exeter High School.
Huchingson will assume his new post on July 1, 2009 to oversee the
continuing development of SCA Redwood Campus'
middle and high school programs.
“We are extremely pleased to once again have a leader
like David on our educational team,” said Burton School District
Superintendent Gary Mekeel. “He has a proven track record of accomplishment
wherever he has served as a principal. David has a regional reputation as a
master at building a positive, collaborative culture in every school he has
led.”
At Exeter High School, Huchingson was instrumental in
developing a highly functional leadership team that used student data and
the latest educational research to create a progressive, high-achieving
learning environment. Under his leadership, Exeter High School was only one
of two high schools in Tulare County that were eligible to apply this year
for the honor of being named a California Distinguished School. The
formality of a site visit by the state evaluators this month is a strong
indicator that they will, in fact, achieve this recognition before
Huchingson departs for his new assignment in Burton.
Huchingson is familiar to many families in the Burton
District. He served for eight years as the principal of Burton Middle School
where he supervised the opening of the new campus. “Our goal was to make
Burton Middle School the premier middle school in Tulare County,” Huchingson
said. “Over the last nine years, through the hard work of its students and
staff, I can honestly say we achieved that goal.” The campus routinely
accepts nearly 150 inter-district transfer students who are attracted by its
reputation for student success. Huchingson will apply that same strategic
thinking to his new role in building the Redwood campus enrollment to
400-500 students over the next few years.
Huchingson has spent his entire 35-year career in
Tulare County public schools. He received his undergraduate degree from
Pasadena College and earned his master’s degree in education from Fresno
Pacific College while he was working as a teacher in the Porterville Unified
School District. He was an elementary school principal for six years in PUSD
before taking a 3-year position as an Assistant Superintendent in the
Beardsley Elementary School District. “I realized that I get the most
satisfaction in my career as a principal. My heart has always been at the
campus interacting with students and staff,” Huchingson said. “I now have
experience being a principal at every grade level and, hopefully, that will
better enable me to help families and students with the transition into the
high school setting.”
Huchingson’s wife Melody is a second grade teacher at
the Summit Charter Academy. They have two grown children who are products of
the Porterville public schools.
David Huchingson plans to hit the ground running as the
charter academy principal. He and a team traveled
to San Diego this spring to learn more about how best to incorporate the
prestigious International Baccalaureate program into the curriculum next
year. “We have terrific students and teachers at the charter academy and
through this rigorous academic program, we can really give them a world
class educational experience,” Huchingson said.
Summit Charter Academy Redwood Campus Officially Opens Its Doors
On August 18th, 2008, Summit Charter Academy Redwood
Campus officially opened its doors and welcomed its students for the very
first time. Currently supporting 7th-11th grade students, and growing
next year to support 12th graders as well, SCA Redwood is designed to
provide an
exceptional secondary experience for the students of this community.
With waiting lists at most grade levels, the original SCA Mathew had outgrown its
current facility, located at 175 S. Mathew. Expanding Summit Charter
Academy to the new Redwood Campus allowed the school to accommodate most of the students on the waiting list while
expanding program opportunities at the new campus for the 7th
through 11th grade students. SCA Redwood
Campus will graduate its
first class of seniors in 2010.
Now in its fourth year of operation, SCA is a free
dependent charter school in the Burton School District.
The students sign a contract agreeing to follow a strict set of
rules, dress code, and discipline policy. Summit parents are also required
to endorse these policies, in addition to devoting
a minimum of 30 hours a year in
support of the school. As a school of choice, students that do not
comply with the academic and behavioral standards will be released back to
their neighborhood schools.
SCA's curriculum is designed to approach learning in
slightly different ways: Project Based Learning activities are
utilized at each grade level in an effort to help students master the
California Content Standards. The curriculum emphasizes the
visual and performing arts integrated into the academic curriculum. The
school also offers extended-day kindergarten and a
Dual Immersion program for those families that want their students to be
fluent in reading, writing and speaking in both English and Spanish.
English-only classes are also available at each grade
level in which the dual-immersion program exists. Competitive sports
round out the school’s offerings. The Summit teams compete with other
schools in basketball, football, volleyball and soccer. Other sports, such
as golf and cross country are being considered.
SCA Redwood Campus is designed to be an academically-oriented
campus that will prepare students for a four-year college or
university, allowing students to make significant
progress toward their first year of college while attending our high school.
The school will be fully WASC accredited as it
expands, meeting the A-G academic requirements
necessary for students to be accepted into a four year college or
university. The new SCA Redwood campus
is designed to support approximately 100 students per grade level on a first come, first
served basis. To ensure
students have a full and exciting secondary experience, a
wide variety of special activities, field trips and clubs
augment the solid academic program.
For more
information, please contact Site Administrator
David Shimer, or call the SCA
Redwood Campus office at (559)
788-6440.
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