Charlie Housewright Simi Valley Adult School’s new principal has spent years moving up through the ranks of education administration. But it was just a few months ago that he realized, despite his many promotions, he really missed his time with students.

Charlie Housewright moved to Simi last month from his position as director of secondary education at Morongo Unified School District in San Bernardino County.

“When the job came up in Simi, I’d been in an assistant principal position for 10 years and then in another administrative position,” Housewright said. “I really missed people and students. Sometimes in the district office it’s like one long library research assignment. It’s good and valuable work, but the personal gratification I found I was missing was from working with people.

“The more you get promoted, the more removed you are from daily contact with students.”

Two years ago, Housewright came to Simi Valley for the first time as part of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation team that visited Monte Vista School.

“I really like the town,” Housewright said. “During our breaks I even walked around the adult school and thought the place was pretty cool. I really like it here—I knew I would.”

Don Gaudioso, assistant superintendent of personnel services, remembers meeting Housewright from the accreditation team visit and said he’s been a perfect fit. Former principal Judy Perkins left the district last year for another adult school position closer to her home in Oxnard.

“He came with a wide variety of experience,” Gaudioso said. “But the thing we liked best about what we saw in Charlie is his ability to bring diverse groups together and resolve issues and move schools forward in a positive direction.

“He’s very personable and very knowledgeable, but in our business you have to be able to take that knowledge and . . . use it. You have to be able to get the people working for you to apply that. We’ve been very happy with that.”

Housewright grew up in Indio, Calif., and earned a bachelor’s degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He returned to his hometown as a math teacher at Indio High School, his alma mater.

“It wasn’t the subject area I wanted,” said Housewright, whose degree was in history with a minor in English, “but I got the job done. I liked working with kids, and I learned I had a knack for building relationships and creating positive bonds with kids who were struggling. I made connections and saw that I was really helping them, and I found that gratifying.”

Housewright took an administrative internship at Desert Sands Unified School District and also received a master’s in school administration from Cal State San Bernardino. He was an administrator at a private school before taking a job as lead teacher at the California Partnership Academy at Coachella Valley High School.

“It’s a career-technical education course of study combined with academic courses,” Housewright said. “It was intended to give them an interest. We had a 98 percent retention rate when it was really for at-risk kids on their way to dropping out. The work we did made a difference.”

Housewright moved on to positions at La Quinta High School and San Jacinto High School before ending up at Morongo.

Housewright settled in Simi in August and said he’s very happy with the move. He’s also found the transition to be easier than some would expect.

“It’s no secret that the state budget mayhem has just played havoc . . . in education,” Housewright said. “But the financial situation has been like this for a couple years, and I’ve been dealing with shrinking budgets already. Understanding how budgets work isn’t scary to me. Decisions have to be made, but if you’re smart, you make those decisions with others, with communication. I’m not just winging it here on my own.”

Being at an adult school has made things a bit easier.

“We’re in a better situation than others,” Housewright said. “We control our own destiny because we generate our revenue by charging fees and tuition. We’re able to see what our costs are and make adjustments.”

The school’s staff has worked creatively so that only about 10 percent of programs at the school have increased their fees, he said.

Attendance has held strong despite the increases.

“It’s one of the best bargains in the region, even with some fees going up,” Housewright said. “I tip my hat to the community, because we really shared the decision-making. When it came time to talk about raising fees, we talked to groups and students about how they would feel about it. Mostly the response was, ‘We’ve been surprised you haven’t been charging these fees the whole time.’”

Between 9,000 and 11,000 students take classes at the school.

“It’s kind of like community college,” Housewright said. “There are career-tech classes, high-level academic classes, diploma classes, English-as-a-second-language and citizenship classes, personal enrichment classes—add all of that up and a lot of people walk through the gate, day and night.”

For more information on Simi Valley Adult School, visit www .simi.tec.ca.us.