The school district announced Donna Servignat as the new principal of Summit High School on Wednesday, March 13. She will begin July 1 in preparation for the 2024-2025 school year, replacing Principal McDonald who is retiring after 22 years at Summit, including six as principal. 

Servignat currently serves as the Director of Secondary Teaching and Learning at the Reynolds School District in Fairview, Oregon. Additionally, she has also worked as a principal at Central High School in Independence, Oregon and assistant principal at Century High School in Hillsboro, Oregon. Servignat began her career in education teaching French for 14 years and has held various other roles, including activities director and dance coach.

The announcement came after the Principal Interview Community Forum on Feb. 21 with the two final candidates, Servignat and Mary Thomas. Thomas is currently serving as the assistant principal at Summit.

Based on the community forum, the two candidates had relatively similar ideas and philosophies, including goals for increased communication and student engagement. The obvious difference between Servignat and Thomas was their experience at Summit High School. Many teachers were hoping that Thomas would receive the job offer as she is someone that the staff already knows and trusts. But ultimately, only the school district can make the final decision.

Overall, teachers experienced a lot of frustration directed at the hiring process and the district, not Servignat herself.

“I didn’t really get a real feeling for the kind of person she is and how she’ll fit. She has [a] good background. She had a lot of experience that I think will be good, but I have nothing to base an answer on besides that,” said Overcash, the Summit librarian.

Overcash was a member of the district’s teacher committee that participated in the hiring process and was disappointed in the teachers’ involvement in making the final decision. Additionally, she had concerns about the hiring process in general.

“The whole process was really mishandled. It was very disorganized. Stuff was done wrong,” said Overcash.

For example, a candidate’s name was misspelled at the community night, the wrong school was listed on a form, and the staff weren’t notified of the candidates or community night until the same day.

For the most part, students are ambivalent about or unaware of the change in administration while others that participated in the hiring process feel optimistic.

“Honestly they both wowed us. I think that they have really great strengths in their different areas,” said Quinn Raynak, member of Summit’s student government, as well as the student panel at the community forum. “I don’t think we could go wrong with either of them.”