District's adult school gets new principal
By Kyle Jorrey kjorrey@theacorn.com

Bernie Carr, the principal at Weathersfield Elementary School in Thousand Oaks, will be heading the Conejo Valley Adult Education program.

Carr, a 32-year veteran of Conejo Valley Unified School District, has been at Weathersfield for the past five years. He's replacing the departing adult school principal, Mike Berger, who's retiring to pursue a career in real estate.

"I'm fired up," said Carr, who spent six years in CVUSD as a teacher and 26 as an administrator, mostly at the elementary level. "I think change is good for all people."

In addition to his position at Weathersfield, Carr has also served as principal of Wildwood Elementary (1979-1984), Maple Elementary (84-86), Los Cerritos Middle School (86-91) and Westlake Elementary (93-2001). In 1991, Carr left the district for two years to serve as division director for the Kentucky Department of Education.

Carr said his only venture into adult education came when he taught a math class at Conejo Valley Adult School in the 1980s. De

spite a lack of experience at that level, Carr said his long history in education makes him qualified.

"It's going to be a lot of information to learn. It's going to require managing people, managing budgets, and trying to be creative and grow the programs they currently have as well as starting new programs-but I'm up for the challenge," Carr said. "It's still about offering the best education opportunities possible. It's just a different audience."

Superintendent Robert Fraisse agreed, calling Carr "a perfect candidate for a program that has a long track record of success."

"It is my belief that the best indicator of future success is past success," Fraisse said. "The technical differences he'll easily learn-it's his leadership skills that are lifelong that are going to make the difference."

Carr has been married for the past 36 years to Chris Carr, office manager at Meadows El

ementary. They have four children-all boys-who graduated from Westlake High School.