Challinor accepts top post in Boron

(This story originally appeared in the Hesperia Star Tuesday, October 3, 2006)

Rob Challinor, the Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services for the Hesperia Unified School District, has left his position at the Hesperia Unified School District in favor of a superintendent’s position at the Muroc Joint Unified School District.

“I wasn’t looking for this job,” Challinor said Friday, his last day serving with the HUSD. “It’s kind of one of those things that just happened. I got a phone call from a search firm one day.”

Challinor is a 27-year veteran of education in Hesperia, teaching special education before the Hesperia Unified School District was formed and was the first principal of Sultana High School.

“My whole professional career has been spent here. It’ll be very strange,” he said. “Lots of close friends, longtime relationships, I’ll be leaving behind. But that’s what we do when we grow up and move on.”

The Muroc Joint Unified School District is a K-12 unified school system of approximately 2,300 students northeast of Los Angeles. It encompasses Boron, Edwards Air Force Base and points north of Edwards. The district includes two comprehensive high schools, an alternative high school, a middle school, a kindergarten through sixth grade elementary school, a K-2 elementary school and a 3-6 elementary school.

Mesquite Trails Elementary School Principal Jovy Yankaskas formally takes over for Challinor as the new Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services today, following a vote at last night�s school board meeting.

“I think [Superintendent Hank] Richardson has been interviewing me for a while,” Yankaskas said Friday. “Asking me for ideas, asking what things I would be doing.”

She wasn’t aware at the time that the conversations were essentially an interview, “which is a beautiful thing I think, since I could speak more honestly and openly. … The kind of relationship we’ve built over the years is I have confidence in him and I admire him. And it’s easy to speak to him about things.”

Yankaskas’ first job in administration was as the first assistant principal of Mesquite Trails under principal Mark McKinney, now the district’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

“I’ve already started thinking about things and looking at the system itself from that level,” she said. Challinor “put the right people in the right places and they’re doing a fantastic job. I could probably not show up for weeks and it would continue. … The people know what they’re doing and have made great strides in that division.”

As the principal of Mesquite Trails Elementary School and Eucalyptus Elementary School before that, Yankaskas regularly worked with the Educational Services division.

“So as far as that goes, I’m familiar with all of the departments under Mr. Challinor. Walking in, I know the people, I know what they do for the sites,” she said. “That part comes easily.”

Yankaskas’ assistant principal, Dave Stewart, took over for her on Monday. A week ago, he had no idea what was in store for him.

“It was status quo, lock and load, but the next thing you know, your life takes a 180,” he said Friday.

It’s a process that’s happened to him before: In July 2004, Stewart arrived in Sacramento for the Olympic track and field trials as the number one pre-Olympic favorite. But illness cost him a spot on the team. (His training partner, Bryan Clay, went on to win the silver medal for the decathlon in Athens.) A week later, his wife was being offered a job as a teacher in California, and a position for the Canadian-born Stewart followed.

Taking classes for a Masters of Administration degree at California State University at San Bernardino, he had classes taught by Challinor, who talked up the HUSD, prompting Stewart to apply. He was hired as the assistant principal at Mesquite Trails in July 2005.

Challinor isn’t the first High Desert school official to sit in the Muroc superintendent’s seat: Greg Lundeen, the former superintendent of the Victor Valley Union High School District, served as the interim superintendent for the past two months as the local school board hunted for a permanent replacement for retired superintendent Mike Summerbell.

The move to Muroc will mean a lot of changes for Challinor. In the HUSD, much of his attention in recent years has been on managing the explosive growth of the school district. In Muroc, the student population is remaining steady or declining, which poses different challenges, as revenue is in large part tied to the size of the student body.

“There was a time, oh, probably as recently as seven or eight years ago that we were flat here in Hesperia, and that was a challenge then. But yeah, I think the slowdown will be nice and [we can] focus on issues we don�t always have time for, although they’re just as important as other issues we face.”

Challinor also inherits the enviable problem of how to continue to motivate teachers when Muroc students are already at the upper end of academic test results for the state.

But after 27 years, the biggest change for him will simply be starting over in a new school district.

“It’s been a pleasure and an honor to serve the community as long as I have,” Challinor said.

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com.