Former English 9 and 11H teacher Karen Van Putten originally planned to return to the English Department this fall after working to help new teachers in the district for two years. However, she recently accepted a job as assistant principal at Fremont High School.

“I am very excited about a new opportunity to serve students and teachers in a different capacity,” said Van Putten. “I am also sad about leaving LGSUHSD, and specifically, Saratoga High School where I had every intent to return in the fall to teach in the English Department.”

In the past two years, Van Putten worked as a PAR/BTSA(Peer Assistance and Review/ Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) as a new teacher advisor. Her job was to “support teachers new to the district and help them to develop as profession educators.”

While working with new teachers at Los Gatos and Saratoga, she also got involved in many other classrooms other than English.

She joined SHS in 2000 and was a teacher here until 2007. She held several leadership positions on campus, helped to initiate the Link Crew with assistant principal Brian Safine, served as part of the Activity Taskforce and contributed to the staff development.

Van Putten feels that working at Fremont will bring her back to her urban feeling roots in Chicago.

“Fremont High is the most diverse of the five [schools] in [the Fremont Union] district. They have very diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds,” said Van Putten. “I’m looking at it as a welcome challenge.”