Palo Alto High School Assistant Principal Vicki Kim will leave at the end of the school year and become principal at Carmel Valley Middle School in San Diego, California.

As the administrator for the Class of 2018, Kim feels that with the seniors ready to graduate, she will also depart on a new journey to reach her goal of being promoted to principal. With an offer from a middle school in San Diego and aspirations of moving to Southern California, Kim is ready to make this transition.

“I’ve been here for five years as the assistant principal and my next step, naturally, in my career is to be a principal and I feel like I’m ready for it,” Kim said. “I was thinking about how to do that. My husband and I have always wanted to move down to San Diego and we have always talked about it, but the timing has never been right until now.”

Kim emphasizes that since the Class of 2018 was the first class that she has administered for the full four years, she feels that she will be graduating with the seniors as well and the transition could not have come at a better time.

Last week, Kim was one of the top three finalists for principal at Monta Vista High School in Cupertino and her responses to the candidate forum were live-tweeted by Monta Vista’s student news outlet, the El Estoque. For Kim, Monta Vista was one of her potential next steps to becoming principal.

“I was a little bit surprised when the news report came out about my the Monta Vista application, more so because I had other things in the works,” Kim said. “I was contemplating different things and Monta Vista was one of them and moving to San Diego was another.”

Upon receiving a job offer in San Diego, Kim ultimately decided that moving to Southern California would be the best choice for her and her family and she withdrew her application for candidacy at Monta Vista and accepted the position in San Diego.

With the school year coming to an end, Kim will continue to work with the faculty on the master schedule and provide her successor with a smooth transition to Paly.

“My goal for the rest of the year is to create a solid schedule that is best for the kids and teachers,” Kim said. “It’s always a good situation when I make both parties happy, so that is really going to be the bulk of my work for the rest of the year. I also have some other things that I really need to focus on in terms of transitioning because I don’t want to just leave. I want to be able to create a well-thought-out transition plan that really leaves the people at Paly with a certain solid understanding of what next steps might look like. I know that might change when I’m gone, but at least people will feel a little better having a sense of direction.”

During her five years at Paly, Kim appreciated the hard work, caring, compassion and drive that her colleagues at Paly had. She stresses that the Paly administration and faculty will do a great job taking over her position and guarantee a smooth transition for the incoming classes next year.

“One of the things that I always appreciate about Paly is that the people here like kids, and that sounds like a funny statement because you would think, ‘well they should because we’re a school and why would you work here if you don’t like kids,’ but that’s not always the case in all schools. I’m really proud to have worked here and be part of the culture where we really do like kids and we support them and we really want to help kids.”

Kim’s time at Paly will come to an end in the middle of June and a new administrator will take her position. Replacements or the hiring process has not been made public by the Palo Alto Unified School district yet.