Helen Griffith
Helen Griffith’s service for San Diego Unified District includes a five-year assignment at Abraham Lincoln High School as an ROP teacher for the Marketing and Special Event Planning Course and career instructor for the Jobs for America’s Graduates Program (JAG). In 2003, Griffith was selected to be a feature teacher in the San Diego County Office of Education’s online training modules for her outstanding work in Classroom Management and Differentiated Instruction. This training module is still being used today for on-going professional development for educators at-large.
From 2002 to 2005, Griffith served on the Lincoln-Gompers Redevelopment Committee (LGRC) and as part of the Facilities Design Task Force to create the new Lincoln High School campus. Griffith’s experience also includes serving as lead teacher and facilitator in the development of the new small school at the Crawford High Educational Complex – CHAMPs Community Health And Medical Practices.
Shortly after CHAMPs opened in 2004, Griffith became their first Dean of Students. With the re-opening of the newly constructed Abraham Lincoln High, Griffith was appointed vice principal in 2007, joining the administrative team tasked with opening 4 small schools on one campus. Most recently, Griffith was appointed as principal to open another new school, Millennial Tech Middle (MTM) for grades 6-8. This new dedicated magnet school focuses on hands-on learning around the STEM curriculum (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). For the 2011 academic year, MTM hails as a high performing middle school with an Academic Performance Index (API) of 826 in addition to achieving a 40 point growth in student achievement gains.
Earning numerous awards for outstanding performance, Helen was Junior Achievement’s Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2003, CHAMPs Outstanding Leadership and Service Award winner in 2006, Pi Delta Kappa’s 2007 Outstanding African-American Educator of the Year, selected as Outstanding Educator of the Year for 2010 by Lambda Kappa Mu, and she was a 2010-11 Educator of the Year Award recipient with the California League of Middle Schools, Region 9.
Griffith received her undergraduate degree at the University of California San Diego, a Master’s Degree in Educational Technology, and the Administrative Services Credential at San Diego State University both with academic honors. She holds five credentials from the state of California and is currently enrolled in San Diego State University’s doctoral program for Educational Leadership. Her research interest is focused on the coaching and mentoring experiences of transformational principals in urban schools.
Griffith plans to continue to give her life in service toward the good of her family, her church, and the educational community to which she has been called.