ST. GEORGE — As the school year winds down, the Washington County School District is already preparing for next year with the appointments of new principals.
Taking over for the 2023-24 school year are Brett Gifford at Pine View Middle School, April Heath at Horizon Elementary and Kristie Wheeler, who will replace Heath at Bloomington Hills Elementary.
Gifford, a graduate of Pine View High School, served as a learning coach and teacher at Pine View middle and high schools before his first stint as an assistant principal.
“I feel so fortunate to be able to work at such an amazing school,” said Gifford, who served as the assistant principal for three years at Pine View High School, where he also taught for seven years.
Prior to that, he was an assistant principal at Sunrise Ridge Intermediate.
In addition to his contribution to student academics, he coached both wrestling and football for the Panthers.
“It’s a good community and a good place, and the nice part is, I know a lot of the staff and a lot of the people,” said Gifford, adding that working with youth, especially in athletics, led him to a career in education.
Gifford has familial roots in education; his mother was a teacher at Washington Elementary and his grandfather was an athletic director.
As the fifth principal of the school, since it opened in the late-1980s, he said he is looking forward to getting to know the staff and students.
He said he has caught the pickleball bug and loves anything physical and fun. Gifford also said he loves Hawaiian pizza and wants to travel to Europe. He enjoys all types of music and compares his career life to the movie “Invincible” by just having the opportunity to be part of educating youth.
He is married with four kids and is going to be a grandpa in the near future.
Gifford said he is looking forward to working with the staff, parents and community members who make the school such a success for the students.
Heath is not a new principal in the district. She will be new to Horizon Elementary as she transfers to take over for Mona Haslem, who is retiring. Coming from Bloomington Hills Elementary, she said she will miss everyone there but looks forward to her new role at Horizon.
“It’s a new opportunity for me,” Heath said. “To go meet some new people, the community out there and it is a little closer to my home.”
She offered nothing but compliments of her current staff, saying it was a hard choice to leave Bloomington Hills.
Heath taught in the school district for 10 years before earning her master’s degree with an administrative license. She then became a site coordinator as well as a learning coach for a few years leading up to being the principal at Bloomington Hills.
She grew up in Henderson, Nevada, and ended up attending Southern Utah University where she got married and relocated to the St. George area and has been here ever since.
Heath has three children and loves to spend time with them hiking or playing card games. She loves country music but rock as well and loves all sorts of cuisine but will not eat pineapple on pizza. She is a big fan of primates like monkeys.
“I have some big shoes to fill there (Horizon),” Heath said. “Right now things are working over there.”
Heath will be taking over a nationally recognized Blue Ribbon School and a system of intrinsic rewards only. She said she knows students who just love going to school with that system, which is working, so she said she will have a lot to learn from the staff and faculty.
“We have the best of the best in the school district,” Heath said. “Everything they do is best for the students.”
Kristie Wheeler, who will replace Heath, is a new face from northern Utah and Bonneville Elementary in Orem.
Wheeler said she started in education later in life and began teaching a junior high reading class and loved helping students who struggled with reading. She has taught third, fourth and sixth grades. As an assistant principal of a school closure and merger, she helped supervise two schools in the same year.
She enjoys her family, the band Air Supply, quilting, thin Hawaiian pizza and sports, especially golf. She compares her life to the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness.”
“I’ve never been homeless, but all of the challenges and triumphs in my life to this point have made me happier, more kind and more empathetic for others,” Wheeler said.
She said she and her husband lived in Southern Utah previously and loved it and is looking forward to getting to know the kids. Wheeler added it’s all about the kids and offered advice for her replacement, quoting Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Added Heath to Wheeler: “Take it all in. We really do have the best of the best here.”
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