Fountain Valley School District appoints new principals at Fulton Middle and Gisler Elementary schools

New administrators will take over at Fulton Middle and Gisler Elementary schools for the upcoming academic year, the Fountain Valley School District announced Thursday.

Longtime district employees Erin Bains and Julie Gonzales have been named Fulton’s principal and assistant principal, respectively. Teri Malpass, who is new to the district, will come on board as Gisler’s principal.

At Fulton, Bains and Gonzales will replace former principal Kevin Johnson and assistant principal Jennifer Kajdasz, who both left to take positions as principals in other school districts, said Fountain Valley Supt. Mark Johnson.

Malpass will take the reins at Gisler from Bains.

“We are absolutely thrilled to be able to announce the appointment of these three highly skilled and dedicated leaders,” Johnson said. “Each of these administrators is uniquely qualified to lead in their respective positions. We are confident that their collaborative approach, strong work ethic and commitment to serving our students, staff and community will make a tremendous impact for years to come.”

Erin Bains

Bains is leaving the Gisler Gators to return to educating middle schoolers.

“I have been so fortunate to work in this district with three absolutely amazing staffs and now, having that opportunity to go to another one, I just am very excited,” Bains said. “[I] can’t wait to get on that campus, see everything, work with Julie [Gonzales] ... I’m just really looking forward to it — the staff, the students and definitely the challenge and the change.”

Bains joined the district in 2006 as assistant principal of Masuda Middle School. In 2008, she was named principal of Moiola School — a position she held until the campus closed in 2012.

She became principal of Gisler that same fall and remained there until her newest appointment. She previously taught various grades in the Westminster School District.

Julie Gonzales

Gonzales began her 12-year career in the Fountain Valley School District as a student teacher and was hired in 2008 as a fourth-grade instructor at Cox Elementary School. By 2009 she had joined Gisler, and she then went on to teach first-, second- and fourth-grade classes over the next decade. Now, she’s moving on to Fulton.

“I’m really looking forward to being a part of the Falcon family,” Gonzales said. “I’ve heard incredible thing about the students, the families and the staff and I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to work with all of them.”

Following her introduction at Thursday’s school district board meeting, she added, “I am deeply proud of the work that we are doing here. I truly feel like I have had the opportunity to be a part of a world-class team, and I couldn’t imagine a better place to be continuing on my journey, so I can’t wait to become a Falcon.”

Teri Malpass

Malpass is new to the Fountain Valley district, but she’s no stranger to teaching.

She began her career teaching first and second grades at Weaver Elementary School in the Los Alamitos Unified School District. In 2012, she became a math teacher on special assignment and a sixth- and seventh-grade math intervention teacher.

She was named assistant principal of that district’s McGaugh Elementary School in 2016 — the last position she held before being hired at Gisler.

“What I’m looking forward to is continuing what they’ve already established there,” Malpass said, referring to Gisler. “It’s a great school.”

She said her focus is “building on that and then continuing to work on building collaboration with all stakeholders and continuing to build partnerships with the community, staff, parents and students and also really looking at instruction, diving deep into instruction and, most importantly, bringing some joy to the workplace daily.”