The Philomath School District made a key addition to its administrative team this month with the hiring of Garth Gerot to serve as principal at Philomath Academy.
Gerot comes to Philomath after spending two years as principal at Pleasant Hill High School.
“One of the things when he walked in is ‘this is the job I’ve been waiting for.’ He’s very well steeped in alternative learning and very ready to dive in and craft some programmatic stuff,” Superintendent of Schools Susan Halliday said following Thursday night’s Philomath School Board meeting. “He’s hit the ground running and he’s also going to pick up some district project work for me.”
Halliday mentioned that Gerot spent his third day on the job on Aug. 9 with attendance at an administrator retreat in Newport. And one of those first district admin projects that he’s working on involves a review of new federal Title IX regulations that went into effect Aug. 1.
Gerot’s past experience includes vice principal and interim principal at Siuslaw High School, spending five years on the Florence campus. He also served as a battalion commander with the Willamette Leadership Academy, a Eugene-based public charter military academy.
Gerot takes over the position from Halliday, who served as the school’s principal in addition to her superintendent responsibilities, following the 2023 resignation of Dan Johnson.
Another recent notable hire occurred in the special education department with Linda Jmail.
“Finding a special ed teacher anywhere in Oregon is like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Halliday said. “It’s so hard … just really, really hard. We’re working out some logistics to shift some things around but Linda right now will be spending some time at Clemens Primary and she’ll also be doing some paperwork pieces for some of our current special ed teachers to be able to help pick up some of that.”
Another recent hire at the district level was Rachel Baker as a library media specialist. She will succeed Ashley Folgate in September. Halliday said the position encompasses the leveraging of libraries as a resource while not forgetting technology.
“It’s how do we look at technology in our classrooms and at the same time, how do we look at STEM and STEAM activities?” Halliday said references to science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. “How do we look at the use of our libraries? So it’s really about trying to meld those together.”
