Two familiar administrators in the Scotts Valley School District will retire in June to pursue activities outside the realm of public schools.
Brook Knoll Elementary School Principal Kathy Frandle and Scotts Valley High School Principal Gregg Gunkel each announced their retirement this spring.
“Both have been absolutely amazing,” Superintendent Susan Silver said.
Silver added that the hiring process is under way, and the district hopes to bring recommendations for replacements to the board of trustees in late May or early June.
Frandle steps away
Kathy Frandle has been principal of Brook Knoll since 1995, after she joined the Scotts Valley School District from Castroville in the early 1980s.
“It was one of those fluky things,” Frandle recalled. “I applied for a position, probably in March, thinking it was going to be for the fall. It was for now.”
She started as a speech and language pathologist and split her time between Brook Knoll and Scotts Valley Middle School.
Frandle, 57, began her teaching career in 1975 in Idaho, where she taught special education and first grade. She moved to Santa Cruz with her husband five years later and spent a year in Castroville before starting in Scotts Valley.
During her time at Brook Knoll, the school’s enrollment has fluctuated from the low 300s to as many as 725 students. Its student roll now numbers about 590.
In the early 2000s, the school underwent a modernization, and it has gradually embraced computer technology to the point where each classroom has an LCD projector and each teacher has a laptop computer.
Frandle said her husband has urged her to retire, and the birth of her first granddaughter was the final straw.
“It’s been a great career. I feel so lucky,” Frandle said. “I work with great kids, great teachers and a great community.”
Frandle knows almost every child’s name and often remembers her former students when she sees them in the grocery store or around town. Many parents know her personally, because she stands outside the school at the end of the day and greets them as they pick up their children.
She said she has loved working with the district and the parents, who are passionate about their children’s education and will continue to volunteer in the district.
“I have loved working with the whole district,” Frandle said. “I feel like, in the last few years, we’ve really gotten there — that whole concept of they’re all of our kids, they go all the way through. We are really a kindergarten-through-12, not just individual schools.”
Gunkel changes course
After five years at Scotts Valley High School, 58-year-old Gregg Gunkel is retiring and moving back to his stomping grounds in Shasta to take a year off.
“It has been my heart and my passion to commit my career to public education,” Gunkel said. “So it’s been a lot of fun.”
Gunkel joined Scotts Valley High in fall 2005 as a steadying force for the district that had four principals in the previous six years. His five-year stay, along with the 5-year tenure of Vice Principal Valerie Bariteau, has provided stability for the high school, Silver said.
Gunkel began his teaching career as a biology teacher at Mount Shasta High School in 1977 and spent nine years teaching several subjects at the school.
He then moved to administration. He was named the principal of a middle school before quickly jumping to interim superintendent. But after 2½ years, he decided he’d rather be a principal, and he took the position at Mount Shasta High School, where he started his teaching career. In that role, he helped the school earn recognition as a California “distinguished” high school.
He subsequently took a position as director of technology at the district level in the Sequoia Union School District, where he spent four years before his job was cut.
Gunkel came to Scotts Valley with a goal of working on the academic side of education, he said.
By his estimate, his time has been a success.
“Teachers stay now,” Gunkel said. “They feel safe, they have ownership, they have investment.”
He’s proud that the school has established a strong curriculum, raised its standardized test scores and stabilized International Baccalaureate as a part of the school’s identity.
The campus is in much better physical repair, as well.
“When I arrived, eight classrooms were out of service because of mold,” Gunkel said.
He credits contractor John Waite and superintendent Silver for helping work through numerous construction problems related to the original construction of the school.
He also called the support of the Falcon Club and parent club at the school “phenomenal” and added that the district has been behind him at every turn.
“The support I receive from the district, it’s been stellar,” Gunkel said.
