SAN DIEGO — New principals have taken the reins at local Catholic schools.
They include James Brandt, Stella Maris Academy, La Jolla; Annalisa Burgos, St. Mary’s School, El Centro; Jimmy Davoren, St. Columba School; Larissa Frost, St. Katharine Drexel Academy; Dr. Amanda LoCoco, Holy Trinity School, El Cajon; Sister Patricia Rodriguez, Vincent Memorial Catholic High School, Calexico; Erika Rosas, Sacred Heart School, Coronado; John Amann, Cristo Rey San Diego High School; and Brittany Bateman, The Nativity School.
A search is underway for a new principal for Our Lady’s School. The school’s president, Judy Ziment, has stepped in as interim principal.
The following are profiles of this year’s new principals.
James Brandt
Stella Maris Academy
“When I discovered the open position of principal at Stella Maris Academy last January, I believed this was an answered prayer from God,” said James Brandt, whose association with the school goes back 50 years.
He’s a member of the graduating class of 1982.
Brandt attended the University of Notre Dame on an NROTC scholarship, graduating in 1990 with a bachelor’s in Economics with a concentration in Math. He went on to serve in the U.S. Navy for 14 years on active duty and 10 years as an active reservist.
For much of his life, he didn’t consider himself to be a good candidate for a career in education.
“I believed mistakenly that, to be a teacher, you had to know everything,” said Brandt, who credits a stint as a math instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, during his last two years on active duty, with giving him the teaching bug.
Discerning a call to the priesthood, he spent three years in the seminary for the Archdiocese of Washington. D.C., before returning to San Diego.
Brandt taught at St. Joseph Academy in San Marcos, from 2008 to 2015, and subsequently served as a teacher and principal at two Northern California schools: St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Healdsburg, and St. Pius X School in Redwood City.
He earned a master’s in Operations Analysis in 1998 from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and a Master of Education in 2019 from Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.
“I am very excited about being the principal of Stella Maris Academy,” he said. “I am grateful and humbled that I have this opportunity to return to the place that formed me as a child and to discover – and even contribute to – the great things that are happening in this community.”
Annalisa Burgos
St. Mary’s School
Annalisa Burgos, an El Centro native, is the new principal of St. Mary’s School in her hometown.
“I am thrilled to be here (at St Mary’s), where my educational career and ministry journey began,” said Burgos, who has spent 21 years in Catholic schools. “I look forward to furthering the mission of Catholic education and contributing to this wonderful community.”
Burgos holds a bachelor’s in Liberal Studies from San Diego State University and a master’s in Theology from St. John Seminary. She is currently a doctoral candidate (Organizational Leadership with Emphasis on TK-12 Leadership) at Grand Canyon University.
She previously taught middle-schoolers at St. Mary’s, from 2000 to 2002, discovering there that she had a “passion for integrating faith and education” and that Catholic education was her “true calling.”
She went on to teach at Vincent Memorial Catholic High School, serve as principal of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, teach Theology at Yuma Catholic High School, and serve as principal of Holy Family School and then at Sacred Heart School in Brawley.
Burgos served at Sacred Heart School from 2016 until this past summer, when it closed after a decades-long struggle with low enrollment.
In her new post, she is being reunited with former students from Sacred Heart School, many of whom have transferred to St. Mary’s this year.
“I love that many students from Sacred Heart are continuing their Catholic education at St. Mary’s School,” she said. “Seeing them will be bittersweet, as I cherish the memories we made together, but I’m nonetheless excited to witness their growth and journey in faith and learning.”
Jimmy Davoren
St. Columba School
“I had not planned on becoming principal – or even trying to become a principal — but God has His own plans,” said Jimmy Davoren, a fixture at St. Columba School since he moved to San Diego three years ago.
Davoren started as the English Language Arts teacher for the third through fifth grades. Over the past two years, he was the middle-school Religion and Social Studies teacher.
With his predecessor, Principal John Amann, leaving to become principal at Cristo Rey San Diego High School, Davoren “felt called to fill (Amann’s) very big shoes.”
The first-time principal reflected on his new job’s demands.
“A principal’s job relates to the shepherd metaphor the Church uses for pastors,” said Davoren, who earned a bachelor’s in Linguistics and Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2013, and a master’s in Elementary Education from the University of Hawai’i Mānoa in 2019.
He explained that the principal is “primarily a support person for everyone,” whose job is to show the community “where to go” and to “help everyone get there.”
“The teachers, the parents and the students are doing the work,” he said, “but the principal is there to connect them (and) make things go smoothly.”
Regarding his immediate plans, he said, “It’s not the year for me to set into motion too many new ideas, but sustain the good ideas we are already doing at St. Columba.”
Davoren said that Catholic education, with its “Christ-centered curriculum,” comes with “the huge benefit of … a common framework.”
“We can bring multiple cultures to one table while still being linked – a healthy diversity that values collaboration and the same goals,” he said. “We have hundreds of years of history educating the entirety of the world, and thousands of years of scholarship to be our foundation. Yet, we are always responding to the needs of the times.”
Larissa Frost
St. Katharine Drexel Academy
A native San Diegan, Larissa Frost is the product of local public schools.
And she has spent most of her 18 years as an educator in the public school system, including as a special education teacher in the San Diego Unified School District and as a special education director at the Museum School, a tuition-free charter school in San Diego.
But, for the past two years, she served as vice principal and inclusion director at St. Columba School.
“I love being able to share my faith with my school community and being able to pray with my students when we need guidance and inspiration,” she said, explaining what drew her to the Catholic school system. “The Christmas and Easter festivities are extra special as seen through the experiences we share with our students.”
Frost, whose mother was also a teacher, shared that she had been “trying to get into teaching in a Catholic school” ever since she earned her bachelor’s degree in 2006, but she felt that opportunities were harder to come by prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She holds a bachelor’s in Social Science/Communication, a master’s in Educational Leadership, and multiple subject and education specialist credentials from California State University, San Marcos. She also earned an administrative credential at Point Loma Nazarene University.
“I am very excited to lead the amazing team at SKDA and meet their wonderful community,” she said.
“My goal as principal this year is to learn as much as I can about this unique community and be able to enrich the school with my years of knowledge in learning supports, so that every child can excel and be supported in the academic journey.”
Dr. Amanda LoCoco
Holy Trinity School
Dr. Amanda LoCoco felt that God was calling her to “a place of leadership” where she could “make an impact in Catholic education.”
She has found one at Holy Trinity School.
A San Diego native, LoCoco’s first exposure to Catholic education was as a fifth-grader, when she was enrolled at Santa Sophia Academy in Spring Valley. It was “a formative experience,” during which she became an altar server and lector and felt a desire to continue her Catholic education at the Academy of Our Lady of Peace.
She earned a bachelor’s in Religion and Fine Arts from Regis University (2011), a master’s in Biblical Theology from John Paul the Great Catholic University (2014), and a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Leadership from Creighton University (2023).
She taught sixth through eighth grade at the former St. Michael Academy in Paradise Hills, from 2013 to 2014. She was a teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School, from 2014 to 2022, and served as director of institutional research and as an adjunct professor at John Paul the Great Catholic University, from 2022 to 2024.
In 2024, she also was an adjunct professor at the University of Saint Katherine, a San Marcos-based Orthodox Christian university, during its final year in operation.
“I love Jesus,” LoCoco said, explaining what attracted her to a career in Catholic education. “Everything I do is for Him and through Him. In no way would I be capable of working at a secular school devoid of Christ. My love for teaching is rooted in the teaching of Christ.”
“Catholic schools mold the whole person,” she said. “We are not just trying to get students into a good high school. We are trying to get them into Heaven.”
Sister Patricia Rodriguez, SJS
Vincent Memorial Catholic High School
Struggling students at Vincent Memorial Catholic High School have a principal who can sympathize with their difficulties.
“I enjoyed school, but was not a good student in elementary (school) and did not enjoy reading,” said Sister Patricia Rodriguez, a member of the Sister Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, who recently began her first year as principal.
She was born and raised in El Centro by parents who immigrated to the United States to work in the agricultural fields of the Imperial Valley.
“They both valued education and taught us the importance of it,” said Sister Rodriguez, who attended public schools in her youth. “Learning English as a second language was not easy for me, but the dedication, patience and support I received from my teachers were instrumental.”
Her own career in education was inspired by the “joyful witness” of her third grade and high school math teachers, who “went out of their way to help those in need of extra help.”
“They genuinely cared about their students,” she said.
Sister Rodriguez earned a bachelor’s in Liberal Studies, a teaching credential, and a master’s in Curriculum and Instruction, all from San Diego State University.
She has been an educator for longer than she has been a religious sister.
Sister Rodriguez taught first and second grade at Seeley Elementary School and second grade at St. Mary’s School in El Centro, before entering religious life in 2014.
Since professing her first vows in 2018, she has taught middle school Social Studies at St. Kieran School in El Cajon and middle school Religion at Our Lady of Guadalupe Academy in Calexico.
She is scheduled to profess final vows on Aug. 31.
Erika Rosas
Sacred Heart School
“Stunned.”
That’s how Erika Rosas describes her reaction to the news that she had been selected as the next principal of Sacred Heart School.
“Being the first laywoman to lead Sacred Heart in our 76-year history comes with great responsibility and … I felt the weight of this responsibility,” she explained. “Nevertheless, I have not stopped smiling, because I see so much potential in our school and have a vision to bring the school to a new level of student achievement and student success.”
Born in El Centro, Rosas grew up in Tijuana, Mexico, crossing the border to attend Sacred Heart School from 1990 to 1999. She continued her Catholic education at Instituto México, a high school run by the Marist Brothers in Tijuana.
Rosas earned a bachelor’s in Religious and Pastoral Studies in 2009 from Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, Rhode Island. Five years later, she earned a multiple subject teaching credential, a mild/moderate special education credential, and a master’s in Special Education from Point Loma Nazarene University. In 2018, she earned an administrative services credential, also from Point Loma Nazarene.
She was a substitute teacher at Sacred Heart School in 2012, later that year becoming the kindergarten aide. She taught fifth grade at the school for three years, after which she proposed the creation of a Learning Center to help struggling students and served as its director. Since 2018, in addition to directing the center, she simultaneously served as vice principal.
“As principal of Sacred Heart,” she said, “I am looking forward to leading students to a well-rounded education, focusing on the development of the whole person. … My other priority will be to continue to create a sense of community, both internally within the staff and externally in our Coronado community.”
John Amann
Cristo Rey San Diego High School
John Amann is the product of a Catholic education, having attended Catholic elementary and middle school as well as two Catholic universities.
That experience set him on the path to where is today.
“Our Catholic faith has been integral in my life,” he said, “and I knew at a young age that I wanted to be actively involved in our Church due to my Catholic education.”
Amann has been a Catholic educator since 2011, when he graduated from Santa Clara University with a bachelor’s in Political Science and a minor in Catholic Studies. He went on to earn a master’s in Secondary Education from Loyola Marymount University in 2013.
“The opportunity to be able to live out my calling as an educator in an environment where Christ is at the heart of all we do is truly a blessing,” he said.
After three years of teaching in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Amann relocated to San Diego, where he served as a middle school teacher at Nazareth School, an assistant principal at All Hallows Academy and, from 2018 until this year, as principal of St. Columba School.
“I was looking for a new challenge,” he said, “and the opportunity to lead Cristo Rey San Diego, with a mission that aligns so well with my philosophy of education, was something I could not pass up.”
Cristo Rey San Diego, which opened in August of 2020, exclusively serves low-income families.
He said that he is “excited and also nervous” as he begins his first year in high school education.
“That is a new and different experience for sure,” he said. “I am most looking forward to getting to know this amazing community of students, educators and families, and supporting the school in its growth and development.”
Brittany Bateman
The Nativity School
Brittany Bateman’s passion for education goes back a long way.
“I’ve known I wanted to work in a school since I was 5 years old and was forcing my cousins to ‘play school’ on the weekends,” she said. “I even gave them homework assignments.”
“They dreaded weekends,” she added.
Since those early days, Bateman has earned a bachelor’s in Education from the University of Arizona (2001), a master’s in Education from the University of La Verne (2005), and a Master of Arts in Teaching from San Diego State University (2019).
She has more than 20 years of experience in education, including at public, independent and parochial schools.
Bateman believes that Catholic education is “truly priceless.”
“I love that our faith permeates every aspect of our experience, and the teachers and families who invest in Catholic education are dedicated to challenging students, modeling character, and teaching them the importance of service,” she said.
Before becoming principal of The Nativity School, Bateman had served there for four years as assistant principal and director of learning support. Prior to that, she had been at Francis Parker School as part of its student support division.
She decided to apply for the principal position at The Nativity School when her predecessor, Marc Thiebach, announced that he was retiring.
“I knew that God was inviting me to step out of my comfort zone and take on a new role that was equal parts exciting and terrifying,” she said. “I love our students, faculty, staff and the families at The Nativity School, and I am committed to serving them to the best of my ability.”
