After three years at Palo Alto High School, Student Activities Director and Physical Education teacher Allye Mullins will start anew with the Palo Alto Unified School District elementary school PE travel team, teaching PE for grades one through five.

“I’m really excited to spend time with little kids,” Mullins said. “They get so excited to move, dance and play. I think they bring out a lot of energy in me.”

Mullins feels proud of her ASB students for skillfully negotiating with the administration and fighting to include student input in many processes. During these three years as ASB adviser, Mullins has shared her values of obtaining student opinion and collaborative decision making with her students.

“The students have been fighting for a student voice on campus,” Mullins said. “I have no doubt that the officers will continue with this plight in my absence.”

For Mullins, it has been a difficult decision to transfer to her new position.

“Right now it is difficult,” Mullins said. “I love the students and the staff. I was hired by the previous administration [Former Principal Scott Laurence and assistant principals Katya Villalobos, Doug Walker and Chuck Merritt]. The current administration doesn’t seem to share the same vision and philosophies. [Transferring] wasn’t 100 percent my decision. It was, however, 100 percent my decision to join the elementary travel PE team.”

However, Mullins has no plans to leave the Paly community behind.

“I’m hoping to maintain connections through coaching [track and field],” Mullins said. “Paly students are mature, and I feel like I can have serious discussions [with the students]. I enjoy working with students of this high a caliber.”

As it stands, Mullins has mixed feelings about leaving Paly to pursue her new position, where she will be working at at Addison, Fairmeadow, Walter Hays and Hoover elementary schools.

“It’s been a difficult transition,” Mullins said. “I’m both really excited and really sad at the same time. I really do love this job.”