St. Sebastian School gets new principal

Grace Kelly is the new principal at St. Sebastian School in Santa Paula.

Kelly, a 2012 graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, said she reached her senior year and she thought about what she wanted to do. “I wanted to help make a difference,” she added. “For me the best way to do that seemed to be through teaching. So I started as a first grade teacher in Oxnard at Our Lady of Guadalupe School. I loved my days of teaching but all that time I felt a pull that there was something more to do.”

She said her principal told her she would make a great administrator and started to train her in her office. She started to look for opportunities within the Diocese to further prepare herself for the possibility of being in administration.

She got into a Diocese program called Catholic Aspiring Principals Program (CAPP). She said under the CAPP program she got to talk about what being a principal meant to her and how she would take care of a school. She added, “They put you in mock scenarios of dealing with angry parents and how you handle it. They coach you through the possibility of being a principal. This program, specially designed to train and prepare the next generation of principals, was an invaluable experience for me. Here I was able to learn more about the role of principal within a diocesan school. Here I was able to ask my many questions and meet a variety of other principals and diocesan officials.” From that she then went through an interview process and was approved to become a candidate to become a principal.