Jerry Block spent seven years as assistant principal at Oak Park High School and has a strong background in teaching and leadership.
By Melissa Caskey / The Malibu Times
After a two-month search, Malibu High School has a new principal: Jerry Block, a veteran of the California public school system. Superintendent Sandra Lyon announced Block’s hire at the Board of Education meeting on Wednesday last week.
Block took a somewhat unorthodox path toward becoming the principal of Malibu High, but the tools he picked up along the way seem to have shaped him into a valuable asset for the school.
A native of Southern California, Block grew up in Thousand Oaks and earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and linguistics from UCLA. After college, he went on to work for Paramount Studios in Hollywood. At Paramount he worked as a technical director, a job that included technology maintenance and technical support for the studio. However, during his time there, he realized a passion for a different calling.
“My favorite part of my job dealt with interacting with people and teaching people new things with the technology,” Block said. “Reflecting on what I enjoyed doing, I decided to go back to school.”
Bitten by a teaching bug, Block left the Hollywood scene in order to pursue a teaching credential in Spanish. “Senor” Block taught Spanish language courses at several local schools, including Calabasas High School. Eventually, he decided to earn his master’s degree in educational leadership and policy from Cal State Northridge and then got a job as an assistant principal of curriculum and instruction at Oak Park High School.
“Having someone like Jerry here was huge. He knew how everything ran and had the confidence of the staff,” said Oak Park Principal Kevin Buchanan. “Our loss is Malibu’s gain.”
His accomplishments at Oak Park include the development of a modern language program and earning the school a grant for Mandarin Chinese instruction in grades 5-12, including at the AP level. With his work at Oak Park, Block received plenty of preparation to take on his next job in Malibu.
“During my seven years in that role, I had the opportunity for focus teaching and learning on a schoolwide level,” Block said.
Block’s road to Malibu High consisted of a lengthy application interview process before he was chosen as the right applicant. The district was tasked with replacing Block’s predecessor, Mark Kelly. After serving for eight years as principal at Malibu High, Kelly took a job with the district as director of student services in early June.
Debra Washington, assistant superintendent for human resources, headed the hiring process and described it as a “rigorous” assessment of viable candidates. Block was selected from a pool of more than 100 people who applied for administrative jobs with the district. Candidates go through a screening process, a panel interview, an administrator interview and a one-on-one interview with Superintendent Sandra Lyon.
“Each person that’s screened is probably screening for a good number of hours,” Washington said. “The panel does a full day of interviewing and then reference-checking is another number of hours.”
The district put together a 17-member panel to conduct interviews for the Malibu principal job. Panel members included Malibu students, parents, teachers, school boosters, community leaders and district staff, Washington said.
Among the 17 members who interviewed Block was Amy Young, the Parent-Teacher-Student Association president of Malibu High School.
“He was very comfortable, confident and knowledgeable,” Young said. “He answered questions with ease.”
Block is now working on settling into his new role at Malibu High and said part of his focus will be on obtaining a six-year accreditation from Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) this year.
“I know that I am joining a highly dedicated and professional faculty and I look forward to being part of a team that educates the next generation of responsible, global citizens,” Block said.