History Department Head Katherine Holmes-Chuba will be stepping down as department chair to become the Self-Study Coordinator this upcoming year.
As Self-Study Coordinator, she will be organizing the preparation for an all-school evaluation that takes place every seven years.
The school will be evaluated through the Accrediting Commission for Schools and Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a program that is used nationwide to assess the quality of private and public schools.
Categories include organization for student learning, support for student personal and academic support, resource management and development, curriculum, instruction, and assessment criteria.
Holmes-Chuba served as department head for over 17 of her 32 years teaching at Harvard-Westlake.
Her responsibilities included organizing and planning the curriculum as well as training teachers new to the department.
She will continue to teach tenth grade World and Europe II as well as AP Art History classes in addition to her new position.
History teacher Greg Gonzalez will fill her position as new history department head.
“He is going to be awesome,” Holmes-Chuba said. “He has been here for a long time and knows the department very well. I’m sure he will bring great new ideas.”
Holmes-Chuba will be preparing over the next two years to make the evaluation run smoothly.
The assessment will take place during the 2017-2018 school year.
“Change is good.” Holmes-Chuba said. “It is very important to have new leadership, new vision, and a new way of doing things in order to progress.”