Casa Grande principal takes district position

The principal who led the second-largest high school in Sonoma County during the chaotic COVID-19 years is changing jobs.

Casa Grande High School Principal Dan Ostermann is joining the Petaluma City Schools district administration in a new position as college and career pathway coordinator. In his new role, Ostermann will help students navigate colleges, businesses and trades in order to further their education.

He will be replaced by Christina Bridges, currently an assistant principal at the school.

“We are in the future business,” Ostermann told the Argus-Courier. “I will be working with schools, trade and technology professionals and the community to help students prepare for future careers.”

Among other duties, he will facilitate guest speakers, field trips, job shadowing, internships and work-based learning.

Students already take on college classes simultaneously with their high school classes. Ostermann hopes to further that by increasing access to dual enrollment, where students can get high school credit for classes they take at the college level.

“Dual enrollment is a complex process,” Ostermann explained. “We need to take steps forward to make it more available for students.”

One plan Ostermann is excited about is working with the CTE Foundation, Sonoma Corps and the Sonoma County Office of Education on a program that would provide a one-year paid internship for seniors with some of the county’s major companies. “I am looking forward to expanding that critical experience,” he said.

All that is in Ostermann’s future. In the past is seven years of directing Casa Grande High School, the last four as principal, including three during one of the most trying times in modern education history. He says he leaves with a good feeling about the school and where it’s headed.

Ostermann points to the school’s “Profile of a CGHS graduate” as one of the keys to the school’s success. It states, “Upon graduation, all Casa Grande students will be broadly literate, civically engaged, highly employable, and have a personal vision for their future.”

“It has been a wonderful seven years,” he said. “The Big House is awesome. Incredible place. I have three outstanding assistant principals who helped us get through the pandemic. I feel very good about stepping down and turning the school over to them.”

One of those three, Bridges, has been named the new principal. She will be assisted by Luis Garza and Erika Noone.

It was Ostermann and his team that shepherded Casa Grande through three years of the COVID-19 pandemic when the only constant was change.

“It was incredibly challenging,” he said. “There was so much going on. We had to manage to teach, and the students had to manage to learn online. We were all learning new technology.”

Ostermann said that even after students resumed in-class learning, schools had to deal with exposure issues and regulations.

“There were a lot of attendance challenges. We had a lot of protocols and safety challenges,” he said.

So great was the impact of the pandemic, he added, that it is still being felt today.

“I think it has affected the social development of the students,” he said. “It impacted the students and the staff. Everyone is exhausted. I think when we come back next fall, it will be more like normal.”

Ostermann said rebounding from COVID-19 is not the only problem facing today’s teens. “There is the challenge of smart phones and the impact on our youth. It is an information delivery system and it can have impacts on teenagers and especially young girls in ways that are harmful to them and their education.”

Dealing with that impact is just one more issue that today’s administrators deal with in what he calls “an incredibly complex job.”

Ostermann came to Casa Grande from Los Angeles, where he taught and developed music programs while earning a doctorate in education from USC.

Originally from Oregon, he did his undergraduate work at California Institute of the Arts, majoring in jazz trombone and composition. He spent 10 years as a working musician, performing and recording in Los Angeles.