Carbon School District Press Release
For most people, taking a new job in a new place is a challenge. Anyone who is doing that will give different answers to what they are looking forward to. For Connie Todachinnie, who is the new principal at Bruin Point Elementary this coming school year, the answer is the chance to experience something different.
“I think what I am looking forward to the most is working with a lot of new people, people who I don’t know,” she said. “This is really going to help me spread my wings.”
Having taught for over two decades in the San Juan County School District, she will be surrounded by new people, both district wide and at the school, people she will get to know. But there is one exception: Superintendent Lance Hatch.
“He was the principal at Monticello Elementary and then later he became my supervisor when I was an instructional coach,” she said.
But Todachinnie wasn’t always a San Juan resident. She was a military kid and her family moved all over the place, finally settling in Utah County. She later attended Snow College and worked through Southern Utah University to get her teaching degree.
Of the 23 total years teaching, most of it was at Montezuma Creek Elementary, but she did spend two years elsewhere, each year with a different educational organization. For nine years in San Juan, she was an instructional coach and then the principal at Montezuma Creek.
Todachinnie has taken up residence in Sunnyside, something no other principal in years has done while working in the community. In fact, she just moved there in the last two weeks.
“Right now, the housing situation is temporary because we are waiting for the right home to come up for sale, but we intend on staying in the East Carbon area,” she stated. “We really like it there. Everyone in the community seems to know of me already. I really do like small town life. Also, I wouldn’t know how to serve the students if I didn’t know the community, and the best way to do that is to live there.”
The main reason she said she wanted to come to Carbon District to work was that much of her family is on the Wasatch Front. It will be easier for her to see them all with a lot less driving.
“This is kind of in the middle,” she said. “No more six-hour drives.”
She said that in many ways, the school, community and students are not that much different from where she came from; a close-knit community that has the ability to reach for the stars.
“Some people have asked me if Bruin Point is just a stepping stone for me, but it isn’t. I am not looking to go to the district office or another school. At this point, I would like to retire from education with Bruin Point being the last place I work,” she concluded.