Jessica Vocca, the former principal of Dr. Daniel Bright School, took over from Steve King as superintendent of the Cottonwood-Oak Creek School District on April 1 after King resigned to run for Yavapai County Superintendent of Schools.
“This is a very unique time in COCSD history as our superintendent and all of our principals are homegrown,” COCSD executive assistant Tricia Winters said.
Nicole Barrier, who has been with the district for over 23 years as an assistant principal, classroom teacher and special education teacher, was named as Vocca’s replacement at Daniel Bright on March 4.
“All of my principals grew up and attended school in the Verde Valley. That’s what is unique and special about them; they are also a product of our school systems,” Vocca said, naming Cottonwood Community School Principal Heather Wack, Mountain View Preparatory Heather Langley and Oak Creek Elementary School Principal Julie Tatum.
“They have a vested interest in the Verde Valley, they have family in the Verde Valley, they’re leaders in the Verde Valley. They they’re giving back to their community that they grew up in, and they have the same vision that I do. They want strong schools, and they want to be able to give students an opportunity and a safe place to go.”
Vocca attributed the string of promotions to the district’s professional mentoring program.
“There’s an opportunity to grow into reading specialist positions at the schools,” Vocca said. “We have three district mentors right now that work with brand-new teachers. We have a curriculum director, a special education director, we have a business service director, there’s a lot of opportunity to move up in the district.”
Vocca, who was born in Cottonwood, attended West Sedona School until sixth grade, when Sedona became too expensive for her family and they moved back to Cottonwood, where she was enrolled in Cottonwood Middle School, then known as Cottonwood Junior High, and Mingus Union High School, from which she graduated in 1998.
Her father, Steve, is a Lakota Sioux native of Montana, while her mother, Mary Ann, was from St. Petersburg, Fla., and moved to the region as a teenager.
“I met my husband Frank Vocca at Cottonwood Middle School. We didn’t start dating until we were both at Mingus but he was actually in one of my first classes in seventh grade,” Vocca said. “We were married in 2003 and then we had our oldest child in 2004 and then our second child in 2007.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Northern Arizona University, she returned to Cottonwood to continue her career, later earning a master’s degree in education administration from Grand Canyon University.
Vocca said her long-term goals for the district are to build strong academic programs, such as summer programming, career technical education at Verde Tech and teacher recruitment and retention. She said bus driver recruitment in the district is in a state of “serious crisis.”
“Right now we have 11 routes with five drivers,” Vocca said. “How we make that work is we pull in our transportation director to drive routes … It’s getting to a point where, if we cannot find bus drivers, or we continue to lose bus drivers, we have to continue to scale back and just do what we are legally obligated to do.”
Vocca also said that COCSD has not given its staff any training or updates to policy with regards to the immigration status of its students as of Thursday, Jan. 16.
“I want this to be a place where people want to be and want to work,” Vocca said. “I want to attract good teachers, families, students and have a good school system that is part of the community, not apart from it. I want us to be a part of the community. I want to work well with Mingus Union High School because 90% of our students go there. My goal is to build strong programming, keep kids engaged and ensure they have the resources and opportunities they need to thrive.”
