Principals Bring Experience, Ideas to New Academic Year
A year after he left the San Fernando Valley to become assistant principal at Benjamin Franklin High School in Highland Park, Steve Lawler has returned.
Now the newly installed principal at Gaspar de Portola Middle School in Tarzana, Lawler said he’s looking forward to the responsibilities of his new job--his first as principal.
“I see Portola as a school with an outstanding record of accomplishment,” he said, “and I look at it as very challenging to carry on with those traditions.”
The 51-year-old educator received a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in education, both at UCLA. He began his career in 1972 teaching social studies at John Adams Junior High School in South-Central L.A. and came to Woodland Hills in 1986 as assistant principal of Hale Middle School.
His goal for the coming year? To increase parent participation.
“Many of them don’t know that their involvement is wanted and needed,” he explained. “I really want them to be part of the decision-making process.”
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