Joshua Miller will join the EHS staff this school year as the 11th grade assistant principal, replacing Sally Hanzlik who will return to teaching history.
Emmaus will also welcome another new assistant principal, as earlier this summer Matthew Gale resigned to accept a position as principal of Central Bucks South High School. He was on staff at Emmaus for 3 years, and the school board has not yet announced his replacement.
The school board named Miller to the assignment in early July. Prior to his hiring, Miller served as a high school math teacher at Pennridge School District and later Upper Perkiomen School District for a total of nine years of experience in the classroom.
“I taught intermixed grades with my courses, so I taught Algebra I, pre-Algebra, pre-Calculus, geometry… and I did one year in a 9th grade academy at Pennridge,” Miller said. “They were all great experiences, I love working with kids.”
While working as a teacher, administrators mentored Miller and led him to a career outside of the classroom.
“When I first started teaching, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to leave the classroom,” Miller said. “About 5 or 6 years into it, I got in with some really great administrators and some really good leaders of the school that kind of pushed me [to become an administrator], and I’m really glad they did. They are really great people, really great role models for me, really great educators themselves. They helped me move forward in my education.”
Although the 2015-2016 school year will be Miller’s first experience in an administrative role at EHS, he is not a stranger to the school.
“The funniest thing is that I’ve actually been an employee of East Penn for two years,” Miller said. “I was actually a football coach the last two years; I had to resign when I got this position now to be in the building full time, but I’ve been on staff with Coach [Randy] Cuthbert for the past two years, and I got to know a lot of the kids in the district ahead of time.”
Furthermore, Miller is familiar with large school districts like East Penn.
“I went to a large district when I was a student, and my first job teaching at Pennridge was a large district, just like East Penn in a lot of aspects,” he said.
Miller says that during his time as an assistant principal, he hopes to see more technology implemented in EHS, and overall he looks forward to working in an administrative position.
“I was really happy about the appointment here, and I’m glad about coming to this district as an administrator, for sure,” Miller said.
