School district loses two 'anchors' School district loses two 'anchors' (February 02, 2005)

By Marjorie Mader

Almanac Staff Writer

The Menlo Park City School District lost a big chunk of its "institutional memory" when Doreen Mazzei and Joellen Powers retired in December.

They worked side by side as a team for more than a decade in the district office at the Encinal School site and more recently in the temporary quarters east of the Bayshore freeway. Doreen and Joellen were the friendly, welcoming face of the school district, and they kept district facts, figures and historical data at their fingertips.

Doreen, executive assistant and secretary to three superintendents for 15 years, and Joellen, human resource specialist for most of her 13 years, decided independently last August that it was time to say goodbye. They left on the same date, December 31, dealing a double blow to Superintendent Ken Ranella.

"Say it isn't so," pleaded their colleagues, teachers, board members, parents and friends. But the two stuck to their decision.

"You know when it's time to leave," says Doreen. "You can't leave a district in June and August," when school is closing down or starting up for a new year, she says.

What will they miss most? The people -- the faculty and parents -- and working together as a team, they say. "The board members have been wonderful, educated people who truly cared about children and their education," says Doreen.

"We are really a family," she says, and that comes from being a small school district, much like the one she went to school in as a child.

Former superintendent Judy Rogers Bianchi brought Doreen with her from the South San Francisco Unified School District in 1990, and hired and trained Joellen in personnel to take Barbara Slate's place when she retired in 1994.

"Judy worked very hard to bring trust to the district, set the tone and carried it through her seven years," says Doreen. Each of the superintendents under whom they worked, she says, had their own styles and brought something good for the district, she says.

The district office was small then, with only four people, including the superintendent and Jo Mitchell, curriculum director and now assistant superintendent in charge of curriculum and instruction.

"We knew what was going on in the district and we were there to help make the teachers' and administrators' day-to-day lives easier because they have a lot on their plates," says Doreen, while Joellen nods in agreement.
Dignity, humor

Laudatory resolutions adopted by trustees commended the duo for faithful and exemplary service and their contributions to the district.

"Doreen has anchored the district office since 1990 with a rare dignity and sparkling sense of humor, which she has bestowed generously upon the unremitting stream of citizens, officials, students, parents, teachers, administrators, voters, reporters, vendors, consultants," and countless others who have crossed her path, stated the resolution

Joellen, whose two children went through Oak Knoll, Hillview and Menlo-Atherton High School, began her career as an instructional aide at Laurel School in 1988. She did a stint in the private sector, missed the district, and joined the district office staff 10 years ago, becoming "Human Resource Specialist extraordinaire," according to her resolution.

She helped recruit and choose 108 current teachers in the district -- 76 percent of the faculty at the district's four schools -- as well as five of the nine current administrators.

Joellen and her husband, Dan, are starting a new chapter by moving to Carson City, Nevada, where they plan to "bring it down a notch and take time off."

Doreen says she looks forward to a more leisurely pace and spending more time with family, including daughters Michelle Mazzei, a fourth-grade teacher at Oak Knoll, and Christina Borde, deputy district attorney in San Mateo County.

Her husband, Robert, who retired two year ago after teaching 35 years in the South San Francisco district, has plans for Doreen to ski with him this winter and travel, possibly to see the family home in Montecatini in Tuscany.

Maybe later, Doreen says, she might substitute for the school secretaries and in the libraries. "I want to be another Hazel (Galbreth)." She's the legendary retired secretary to Menlo Park superintendents, who kept coming back like Mary Poppins to help out at the district office and every school site. E-mail Marjorie Mader at mmader@AlmanacNews.com
Taking their places

Carol Metzler and Kathryn Christopherson have taken the places of the retired Doreen Mazzei and Joellen Powers in the Menlo Park City School District office.

Ms. Metzler is the new executive assistant/secretary to Superintendent Ken Ranella. Ms. Chrisopherson is a human resource specialist.

Ms. Metzler knows the ropes in school districts. She came to Menlo Park January 3 after working as administrative assistant to San Mateo County Superintendent John Mehl.

Earlier she was administrative assistant to Superintendent Mary Ann Somerville of the Las Lomitas School District and former Superintendent Charla Rolland.

Ms. Chrisopherson began her Menlo Park assignment in mid-December. Previously, she was a credential analyst with the California State Department of Education and worked on the staff of the state's Teacher Credentialing Board. She is a graduate of the University of California, Davis.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.