The Accolade editorial board unanimously agrees with hiring Craig Weinreich as the new principal of Sunny Hills.
The Fullerton Joint Union High School District [FJUHSD] left Sunny Hills with a seemingly unpatchable hole upon promoting former principal Allen Whitten to work as the director of Student Support Services.
However, The Accolade Editorial Board felt a wave of relief as principal Craig Weinreich’s familiar smile and stride graced the campus.
Weinreich earned his Lancer credentials from teaching English and history in 1999, coaching the girls basketball team until 2014 and serving as the assistant principal from 2017-2019.
JOINING CAMPUS EARLIER
After working under these positions for 20 years, he settled in as the assistant principal of Fullerton Union High School for a year and assistant principal of La Habra High School for another year before ending his SH hiatus.
Rather than begin his work at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year, the new principal returned to the SH campus April 13 for his first day on the job. The Accolade Editorial Board unanimously agrees with his swift onboarding, for we feel the 2-3 months he spends among the Lancers will better prepare him for the duties facing the upcoming school year.
Though not for long, his early arrival granted seniors the chance to converse and meet with the new principal before graduation.
With such a resumé, we trust Weinreich’s ability to understand and accommodate for the struggles of the student body, especially considering his familiarity with the Lancer nation.
His prior knowledge of the SH educational programs will further propel his efforts toward strengthening them, establishing larger student participation and ensuring necessary funding.
FUTURE PLANS
Weinreich looks forward to expanding student enrollment and participation in the Engineering Pathways to Innovations and Change [EPIC] and Coding & Gaming programs next year.
A principal who strives to involve the student body in on-campus programs we view as a principal who truly cares for his students.
Though we encourage Weinreich’s efforts to expand student participation in on-campus programs, we, as students, hope his efforts will not mold a student’s interests to point toward a certain program and away from another. Losing student enrollment in certain programs may lead to drops in funding, so we hope our new leader will take such logistics into account.
Furthermore, we trust that Weinreich will equally distribute his support to every program on campus, as opposed to channeling the entirety of his guidance toward one program — suggesting that the others do not possess as much value.
Through his coaching background and pursuit for excellence in school spirit, Weinreich demonstrated his concern for all corners of the campus, and The Accolade Editorial Board agrees his principles will reflect his actions moving forward.
As the board of trustees interviewed potential candidates, The Accolade Editorial Board compiled a list of qualities we hoped the next principal would emulate. Among all, we asked for a principal who possessed Whitten’s approachable, engaging personality and work ethic.
Weinreich voiced his desire to continue Whitten’s legacy while aiming to go above and beyond the former principal’s accomplishments. He models the qualities we wished for in our next leader, and though we will always miss Whitten, we know the Lancers will continue to be in the best of hands.
Because this is The Accolade’s spring cub issue featuring articles from the Journalism 1 class, those on the editorial board decided to give this issue’s mini-editors a chance to take their place with the guidance of adviser Tommy Li. If you have a question about the board’s decision or an issue for the board to discuss and write about, please send an email to [email protected].
