On Jan. 8, Interim Assistant Principal Clarisse Mesa joined the Aragon administration team, assuming the role of Assistant Principal Andrew Hartig, who is currently out on medical leave. Aside from admin changes within Aragon, there have been many shifts throughout the entire San Mateo Union High School District. Don Scatena, previously the Director of Student Services and the Middle College Principal, has left for a Deputy Superintendent position at Burlingame School District, leaving gaps in the district that needed to be filled.
Although she is now in education, Mesa originally received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Public Policy.
“I have a bunch of educators in different forms of my family,” Mesa said. “So I was always exposed to [careers in education], but I didn’t think that I wanted to do that as my profession.”
However, after participating in the non-profit organization Teach For America, which aims to strengthen education equity and excellence by allowing select college graduates to teach students, Mesa realized that she wanted to change the direction of her career.
When I was teaching, I thought [that] there’s so much beyond the classroom that impacts students’ lives
Starting out as a teacher, Mesa eventually decided to make the switch to working on school administration.
“When I was teaching, I thought [that] there’s so much beyond the classroom that impacts students’ lives,” Mesa said. “The systems of what courses get offered, and whether there’s transportation for after-school activities, and who gets financial aid for different stuff and all of these systemic issues were things that frustrated me [as a teacher], and I wanted to be able to do something about it.”
Following this switch, Mesa held many key roles, including Assistant Principal at both the Palo Alto Unified School District and the Liberty Union High School District. Eventually, her career brought her to this interim position at Aragon, and Mesa began to shadow Hartig in December 2024.
“We started to divide the responsibilities while he was still here,” Mesa said. “So it was really nice to get to know [how things work] and have him be able to mentor me a little bit before he went out on leave.”
When she steps into her administrative roles, Mesa aims to bring an understanding of students that is shaped by her own experiences.
“I’m multiracial, and that really matters to me,” Mesa said. “That experience of growing up, especially in the Bay Area, is really important to realize … there’s getting to know [students] as individuals and knowing that all students are going through their own formation of identity and belonging, and also working on their academics and trying to [make connections always].”
Nobody has a crystal ball to figure out exactly what’s coming, so you work with things the best you can
Valerie Arbizu, who had been the assistant principal of Burlingame High School, and former Aragon principal from 2020 to 2024, has stepped in to be the Interim Director of Student Services in place of Scatena.
“We were really lucky in that we were able, as a district, to fill most of those positions with people who already worked within the district,” Arbizu said. “They’ve already had an opportunity to form relationships with others.”
The district has gone through this before, and Arbizu is confident that the district will succeed.
“It’s not the first time [we’ve had a vast admin change],” Arbizu said. “And I hate to say it, [but] I don’t think it’s going to be the last time either, just because we’re people, and things happen. Nobody has a crystal ball to figure out exactly what’s coming, so you work with things the best you can.”
Mesa will be continuing her interim position until Hartig returns on April 18.
