New Upper Division Deans Announced

Current Upper Division Dean of Student and Faculty Affairs Peta Miller announced her retirement in January 2024. Miller's job will be divided into three new dean positions; Megan Zitron as middle school dean, Heidi Markenson as 9th and 10th grade dean, and Melanie Knowles as 11th and 12th grade dean. 

Coincidentally, all of the deans are a part of the science department. This “Science Takeover” will see each teacher drop at least one class such as a math or elective, but Megan Zitron will only be teaching sixth-grade science and her new drawing class. 

Dr. Heidi and Ms. Knowles will teach almost all the same core science classes. Still, they will drop some of the middle school math classes they teach. 

The school is looking to hire a new full-time science teacher to teach the 7th and 8th grade science classes. The school also plans that this new instructor will teach one or two of the middle school math classes that Dr. Heidi and Ms. Knowles previously taught. 

Ms. Knowles noted that the key difference between a student advisor and a student dean is that now Ms. Knowles and Dr. Heidi have disciplinary power. On a larger scale, they have become a part of the administration, responsible for helping make decisions in the school.

This is Megan Zitron’s 8th year working as a middle school science teacher at DJDS, totaling over 30 total years of education experience. Next year, however, marks her first year serving in an administrative role. 

Mrs. Zitron’s new Middle School dean position will operate most similarly to Mrs. Miller’s current position. She will work in Miller’s office and take on the day-to-day operations of the middle school.

Zitron never wanted to take over Mrs. Miller’s position, as it entailed being dean for both high school and middle school. According to Zitron, fulfilling the demands of a 6-12 position requires a lot of time committed away from in-class instruction, something she cherishes.

Zitron feels that her skills are best suited to teach and oversee middle schoolers. “They [middle schoolers] change more rapidly, you can have more of an impact on them,” Zitron said, referring to the unique age of young adolescents.

DJDS Upper Division Principal, Dr. Jeremy Golubcow Teglasi, is excited to work with Megan Zitron, her prior experience teaching 6th, 7th, and 8th grade for the past eight years made Zitron the perfect candidate. “She has this amazing quality where she can create a structure and a set of routines and a system of accountability where it makes students feel comfortable; this is a rare gift,” Dr. G.T. said.

Dr. G.T. 's vision for the school is to delegate power and make more specialized deans serve a smaller number of students. His three main goals for the positions are discipline, leadership, and mentoring. With these ideas, he believes that it will develop new programs to make each grade and the school as a whole better.

The deans will not just be serving an administrative role, Dr. Heidi and Ms. Knowles will still be advisors in the high school while teaching several science classes each day. And Mrs. Zitron will still interact and continue to form relationships with all of the middle school students while simultaneously teaching sixth-grade science. 

Both Mrs. Zitron and Dr. G.T. see the need for an exclusive dean and administrator for middle school. “A lot of the day-to-day issues that arise from Mrs. Miller, arise in middle school,” Dr. G.T. said. 

Teachers throughout the school, especially ones like Mrs. Zitron, understands the pressure young middle schoolers have to grow up fast in order to ‘fit in’ with the older high schoolers. 

In response to these challenges, Dr. G.T. made it clear that he wants the middle school to have a separate, unique culture within the school as a whole. 

One of Mrs. Zitron’s goals for her tenure as dean is to give middle schoolers a space to feel comfortable just being themselves. Middle schoolers have different needs compared to older and more mature high schoolers. The hope is that new programming, along with advisory programs will ease middle schoolers into the complicated intertwining dynamics of high school.