From custodian to principal, Bill Sachau enjoys working at
Sunnyslope Elementary School
Bill Sachau’s office is small for a principal of an elementary
school, but it suits his philosophy about being an administrator at
Sunnyslope School.
”
I just want to get to know everybody,
”
he said, of spending most of his time around campus instead of
in his office.
”
When I was here before I knew every student by name and I want
to do that again. I’m not one to hang out in here all day long.
”
From custodian to principal, Bill Sachau enjoys working at Sunnyslope Elementary School
Bill Sachau’s office is small for a principal of an elementary school, but it suits his philosophy about being an administrator at Sunnyslope School.
“I just want to get to know everybody,” he said, of spending most of his time around campus instead of in his office. “When I was here before I knew every student by name and I want to do that again. I’m not one to hang out in here all day long.”
He makes it a point to get into the classroom at least twice a week. One of his favorite things to do is read to the students, he said, describing himself as a really animated reader.
Sachau first worked at Sunnyslope School nearly 17 years ago as a custodian. He had graduated from California State University, Fresno, with a degree in law enforcement. He and his then-girlfriend Evelyn, who is now his wife, moved to Hollister, where her family lives, with plans to get married. He couldn’t find a job as a police officer, so he took the custodian job.
“I needed a job because we were getting married,” he said. “It had benefits. I ended up there two years, which was longer than I expected. But it was a good job.”
During his tenure, Sachau volunteered at the Hollister Police Department’s property and evidence room, pursuing his interest in law enforcement.
When a day custodian job opened at Gabilan Hills, he took it, and enrolled at Gavilan College for a level 2 police certification program.
But while at Gabilan Hills, he had a chance to organize intramural sports for the students and began interacting with them more.
“I realized I wanted to be a teacher,” he said.
His first classroom gig came up two weeks into the school year when there was an opening for a first-grade teacher. He took it, teaching with an emergency credential. He taught first grade for five years, before he took a job with special education and worked on completing his teaching credential. After finishing his credential, he taught second grade for four years.
For three summers, he served as the principal of summer school programs and he served as the district-wide supervisor of summer school one year. During another summer, he oversaw the migrant education program. He has also worked as the coordinator of special projects at Gabilan Hills and the Hollister Dual Language Academy, a job he said is similar to that of a vice principal.
Sachau knew he wanted to apply for the Sunnyslope principal position as soon as he heard about it in fall of 2010, but he wanted to finish his commitment to Gabilan Hills and HDLA for the 2010-11 school year. When he did apply for the job, he got it.
“It feels like coming home,” he said.
Sachau said he looks forward to sharing his custodian-to-principal story with the students, when the time is right, telling them that with hard work people can achieve their dreams. His own children, Marisa, 11, and William, 7, already know the story. Marisa was the one who encouraged her dad to share it with the community.
Sachau has snapshots of his children up on one side of his office, as well as his framed degree from CSU, Fresno. He also has Boston Red Sox pictures and a Red Sox pennant up on the wall, and wears a Red Sox lanyard around his neck. While Sachau is from Southern California, he said he’s been a fan of the team since he was 6 years old. When the team won the World Series in 2004, that was the year his son was born.
“It was a good year,” he said.
The principal’s job cuts into some of his baseball watching time, Sachau admitted, noting that he missed three games last week when the Red Sox played the rival New York Yankees.
“But they lost two out of three so maybe that wasn’t a bad thing,” he said.
Sachau said he works hard to balance work with family, by being available to them on the weekends. For the second year, he is coaching his son’s Mighty Mites Vikings football team. If he takes work home on weeknights, he does it after the kids have gone to bed.
While the summer school gigs and his administrator job at Gabilan Hills have prepared him, Sachau said the biggest challenge as principal is having a large student population without another administrator on campus.
“But we have the support of other administrators in the district,” he said. “Stress isn’t healthy, so I don’t stress.”
As the new principal on campus, he said he is not looking to “turn the school upside down.” He said he wants to get to know the students, the teachers and staff, and the parents to find ways the school can be more efficient.
He does have a few goals in mind, including raising Sunnyslope’s API score from 765 to 800.
“A few years back, Sunnyslope was a distinguished school so I’d like to see that,” he said.
His other commitment is to making Sunnyslope a safe school. He noted that the school will be implementing a bullying prevention program, coordinated by Al De Vos, the county’s gang prevention coordinator, and the Hollister Youth Alliance. An officer from the Hollister Police Department spoke about the program at Back to School Night last week, and there will be a kick-off for the students and parents in the coming weeks.
“Any problem that is even the smallest, we will look into it,” Sachau said. “We don’t want it to be the one thing where we said it’s not a big deal and it blows up into one.”
Going along with that, he said he has an open-door policy that extends to parents.
“I learned a long time ago that respect is key,” he said. “If you respect parents coming in and listen to them, they will walk away feeling heard. You may not come to an agreement, but they will understand the reason why certain things are the way they are.”
Sachau said he would also like to get intramural sports started for the older students on campus, as he did at Gabilan Hills. Nothing is solid yet, since he wants to coordinate anything the school offers around the after-school sports program being offered by the YMCA.
For now, Sachau said he is happy to be around campus, getting to know the students, teachers, staff and parents.
“I’m a firm believer that if you stop learning, you need to find a new job,” he said. “I learn something every day, from (everyone from) a kindergartner to a teacher.”
