On Aug. 24, the school board announced that Tabitha Rodriguez will join the EHS staff as an assistant principal early in the school year.
This announcement comes after the resignation of Andrea Edmonds, who worked in the East Penn School District for 11 years, beginning in 2004 as a special education teacher. She was most recently the assistant principal for academic affairs at EHS. She is leaving East Penn to pursue a job as Director of Student Services in Northwestern Lehigh School District.
Rodriguez is the third new member to join the administrative team. She joins Joshua Miller and Lorie Gamble; they were hired to replace Matthew Gale and Sally Hanzlik. Gale left for another district, while Hanzlik returned to teach in the classroom.
Tabitha Rodriguez is scheduled to join the EHS administrative team on Oct. 23 as either a grade-level assistant principal or assistant principal of academic affairs, but she hopes to begin even sooner.
Rodriguez previously worked as a Spanish teacher for 11 years at Morris Knolls High School in Rockaway, New Jersey. She also took on some extra responsibilities during her time at Morris Knolls.
“I also served as the interim assistant principal as well at my current school, Morris Knolls High School,” Rodriguez said. “So my experiences: I’ve taught Spanish from Spanish 1 up to Spanish 3 Honors, worked with a lot of students; I also served as the advisor of the National Honor Society so I’ve worked with students both in and outside of the classroom.”
Rodriguez worked toward becoming an administrator throughout her teaching career, and pictured herself eventually being in an administrative role from the start.
“Going back to my first year of teaching is when I started pursuing my career path towards becoming an administrator,” she said. “The same way that I love to help students in the classroom, I wanted to do the same not just for students but also faculty members and the community.”
Rodriguez said she looks forward to her time at Emmaus.
“I hear that the East Penn School District is one of the best school districts,” Rodriguez said, “and just seeing all of the different activities and community involvement, really seeing how well the staff works together, and also just getting that sense of community…” contributes to her optimistic outlook to joining the East Penn School District.
Rodriguez said that before making major changes, her first actions as assistant principal will be “just getting to know the staff, the students, really becoming a part of the school culture and the climate, and based on my observation of the administration and the staff, see how I can best serve the district.”
