PUSD Taps Oak Valley Principal to Lead New K-8 School

Longtime Poway Unified School District principal Sonya Wrisley has been chosen to head a new K-8 campus set to open north of Del Norte High School in the fall of 2014.

The selection was unanimously approved at Monday’s school board meeting and is effective July 1.

“I am very honored and excited to have been selected to open Poway Unified School District's first K-8 school,” Wrisley, who is currently Oak Valley Middle School’s principal, said in a statement. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work on innovative, new ideas for the learning environment.”

Wrisley first joined the district in 1993 as the principal of Canyon View Elementary School. She has led Oak Valley since it opened in 2004.

The K-8 campus, so far known as School No. 39, will be located just north of Del Norte High School in the Black Mountain Ranch/Del Sur area. Earlier this school year, district officials convened a design symposium, with the input of architects and students, to map out the new school. The plan calls for a multi-level campus of 1,500 students broken into five two-story “villages” aimed at building community among cohorts of students. (See images and more information about the plans .)