Principal to Retire After Working in District 37 Years

Principal Don Pate will retire later this month after spending more than half a century in the Huntington Beach City School District, starting as a kindergarten pupil in 1938 and then serving as a teacher and principal for 37 years.

Pate, 60, started teaching in 1956 when Central School, later to become Ethel Dwyer Middle School, was the only school in the district.

“We were a very wealthy district” because of oil revenue, he said. “When I was a fifth-grade teacher, we had a PE teacher, swim coach, art teacher and music teacher. Now there’s just one classroom teacher, and there’s no help.”

Pate has been a principal in the district for 31 years, the last seven at Agnes L. Smith Elementary School.

Ann Sullivan, who has been an assistant principal in the Walnut Valley Unified School District since 1989, will replace Pate when the new school year starts in September.

There will be three other principal changes next year.

Ian Collins, principal at Isaac L. Sowers Middle School for seven years, moves to Ethel Dwyer Middle School, where he will replace Richard Blough who is leaving the district. Collins began teaching in the district in 1967. He previously was principal at Gisler School.

Olivia Gaddini, who has been a teacher in the district since 1973, will become principal at S.A. Moffett Elementary School, replacing Paul Morrow who leaves Moffett to go to Sowers.

The Huntington Beach City School District has eight schools and nearly 5,800 pupils.