Girimonte Appointed as Acting Principal for Dixon High

Maybe that silly pendulum that swung way out there with the idea that it takes spending thousands of tax payer’s dollars for consultants to find a right fit for man and job, might actually be swinging back the other way. Dixon Unified School District first approves Brian Dolan as our DUSD Superintendent and now we have Nick Girimonte as an Acting Principal for Dixon High School. Imagine that.

Brian was a hands-on principal at Dixon High for several years. The students really liked him but they also respected him. What I liked about him was that he appeared to really enjoy his job. He was fun but good at discipline as well. One of my children had Mr. Tognetti as a Principal, the middle one had Brian, and my last one almost had Nick.

Nick and his brothers went to Dixon High School and their family lived here. Their mother works in the schools and their father, an insurance businessman, set the example to be involved in the community. I’ve always liked the family because they volunteered to cook a spaghetti dinner for the AFS (American Field Service) Club at Dixon High School to help our exchange students have a little extra cash during their stay here.

That year, our family had the DHS AFS student from Japan and despite that the Girimonte’s boys were already out of school, they helped us out anyway. It was a good event and the spaghetti was home made and excellent.

More than just a few of our community mourned when Joe was seriously injured and later died from a terrible car accident on I-80 near Vacaville. I have no doubt, though, that tonight Joe was made a very proud father in Heaven when Nick was given the support as Acting Principal at the DUSD School Board Meeting. That was the only reason I really wanted to watch the meeting.

These past three years, and with my last child finishing his tenure at Dixon High, I was on campus numerous times and was always greeted by Nick. He played on the golf team and graduated with my oldest son at DHS. He started at DHS as a teacher in 2001. He's also been the Athletic Director as well as the Vice Principal so knows first hand critical areas of school life. He is a personable kind of guy and you can tell the other students really like him like the way they liked Brian Dolan. This is a very good thing.

I remember when I first moved to Dixon it seemed there wasn’t but a few that really liked the DUSD Superintendent then but there was plenty of salary paid and that amount kept climbing with the next and the next. We hired consultants to find the next supposed right fit. It seems they were always people who really didn’t know Dixon and thought that they could just take their high level of experience and plop it in the middle of a bunch of small town students and really warm and committed teachers and run it all without being personal or transparent. That didn’t work well.

Finally, the leaders are figuring it out. The economy forced us to. Raise up and promote from within is a really good working model. I pledge my support to Nick (and to Brian.) I pray Nick will still want to be the DHS Principal as soon as the School Board thinks they can process the paperwork! I have a hunch he will truly show how a local boy does good. Congratulations Nick!