My name is Ryan James, and I am very excited to serve as the Assistant Principal at Kyrene Monte Vista Elementary School. As a 3^rd generation educator in my family, my passion in education is quite possibly hereditary. My grandmother, who was a special education elementary school teacher, tells stories about my brother, two sisters, and me “playing school” as young children, taking turns teaching each other. This never stopped: In high school my Spanish teacher let me teach our Spanish class. This prepared me to spend a summer teaching community-health initiatives in a rural town in the Dominican Republic. From an early age, I gained an understanding of teaching and leadership.

Throughout college I worked as an AVID tutor in the Tempe Elementary School District, and I also was a program coordinator for Jobs for Arizona’s Graduates at Marcos de Niza High School. I then graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in secondary English education and taught middle school reading and writing at Kyrene del Pueblo Middle School and Kyrene Middle School. At KMS, I served for several years as the English Language Arts Department Chair and participated in a wide range of school-wide leadership initiatives.

I then got my Master in Educational Leadership and Principalship from Arizona State University and had the valuable opportunity to serve as the assistant principal at Kyrene de los Lagos Dual Language Academy – one of Kyrene’s English-Spanish dual language programs. At Lagos, I was able to utilize my Spanish fluency to help assist students in their own personal journeys in bilingualism and biliteracy. I then was the assistant principal at Altadena Middle School and Kyrene Traditional Academy. Now, I am very excited to join and support the Monte Vista family!

 

 

Ryan James | Assistant Principal 
Monte Vista Elementary School

Kyrene School District

P: (480) 541- 4400 | E: rjames@kyrene.org

15221 S. Ray Road, Phoenix, AZ 85048