As Rancho San Justo Middle School’s Vice Principal Lisa Jelinek becomes the campus leader, she hopes to create a “soft place to fall” for her students.
It is a phrase borrowed from Elaine Klauer, the current principal set to leave her post this week to become one of three assistant principals at San Benito High School. Jelinek will take her place.
“In middle school, that’s when you learn who you are,” Jelinek told the Free Lance. “And you have to feel that school is a safe place to make mistakes.”
Jelinek became one of two vice principals at Rancho last year. She helped the school re-establish a sense of community after the site added sixth graders to its campus. The change meant the approximately 600-student campus suddenly had 900 children.
“Everybody was new,” the administrator said. “There was lots of new here.”
Though Jelinek was not born in San Benito County, she considers herself an “honorary Hollisterite now,” she said. The administrator grew up in rural North Carolina—then spent time in five states before landing in California.
The move to San Benito County came 16 years ago in 1999 when her husband, Peter, had to be inCalifornia for work.
“He drew a circle on the map and he decided how far he was going to commute and then he looked for a town that was kind of rural like I was used to,” she said. “And he said this is where you’re going to want to stay. This is where you’re going to want to live and that’s how we came to Hollister.”
Jelinek—who still gets comments on her accent—formerly worked in the banking industry but switched to teaching when she moved to her new home, she said.
“My whole family is educators so it was just a natural progression,” the administrator said.
Jelinek sent the family’s three children to the Hollister School District campuses and started her career in education at Rancho in 2007, she said. Over the years, she taught seventh and eighth grades and worked as an intervention teacher.
“I love middle school kids,” she said. “They just are really interesting to me. They’re fun because they’re at that stage where they swing wildly in emotions.”
One moment they’re confident and “ready to take on the world” and the next they’re scared, she said.
“You have to be a special kind of crazy to like middle school,” she said.
