By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

After 12 years of service, the principal at Parmer Lane Elementary will walk the halls for the last time Dec. 30 as the school’s chief administrator.

Principal Mario Acosta has accepted a position as a program specialist with the Texas Education Agency after more than a decade with Pflugerville ISD. He will be part of a monitoring and intervention team assigned to help underachieving public schools design strategies to meet state standards.

“I was very fortunate to be selected as a principal here at Parmer Lane,” Acosta said. “Parmer Lane has always had a really positive culture. I think and try to improve it as the changes in curriculum were made and trying to make it fit our culture while still making the students successful.”

In Acosta’s long career as a Texas educator, his experience varies from the elementary level to high school and from large school districts like Pflugerville ISD to small class A campuses.

“I would say that PISD has been the best district I have worked at,” Acosta said. “The emotional intelligence of the people who work for the district – they have their heart in the right place and that’s trying to educate the children they serve. I think that for the most part all campuses in our district do that. They really focus on each individual child.”

During his tenure at Parmer Lane Acosta oversaw the school’s transition to a bilingual campus, with which came a drastic change in the student demographic as well as a need to seek and hire bilingual personnel.

“We were the first in PISD to have the bilingual program. So our population demographics changed drastically during my time here,” Acosta said. “I’ve been at school that have been at different levels and you try to implement systems that help students learn the best, and I certainly have done that. Research-based strategy for instruction is critical.”

Superintended of PISD Charles Dupre said Acosta’s contributions will be missed in the school and the district.

“Mario exemplifies the Pflugerville ISD motto of Each Child, Their Future, Our World,” Dupree said in an e-mail. “Under his leadership, Parmer Lane has been named one of Austin’s best school’s by Austin Monthly magazine, is regularly on the Texas Business and Education Coalition Honor Role and has received numerous Recognized ratings in the Texas Education Agency’s yearly accountability ratings. Those honors are impressive, but even more important is Mario’s dedication to the students and staff at Parmer Lane. He has been a fantastic leader for our district, and he will be missed.”

Acosta said providing a manageable, organized working environment for teachers is vital to allowing them to make a positive difference in the classrooms. He said his philosophy as an educator is cliché but true.

“You hear a lot about how it’s for the children but, here at Parmer Lane, it really is for the kids,” he said. “The teachers work very hard each day just to make sure they’re meeting the needs of all the students we have here at Parmer Lane, and you can see it in the transfer students who come from other schools. The adjustment that they make to fit in with our high expectation of learning and behavior, it’s a really positive transition and you can almost see it within a couple of weeks in each individual.”

High expectations are essential to breeding a tradition of academic success and challenging children to want to learn and enjoy coming to school.

“Cooperation between the parent and the school has to be there so that the child can be successful and learn that learning is important; that you need to get here on time; that you need to pay attention in the classroom,” Acosta said. “When you have that support, these kids are amazing how much they learn in a school year… That is really something to see as they mature and grow in their knowledge of how to learn, so that’s all been very rewarding for me. You get a lot of hugs from the elementary students. They appreciate you, they feel like they are safe, and they know you and they see you and they feel safe at school and you want to create that kind of climate.”

Assistant Principal Barry Miller has been named interim principal until a permanent replacement is named in the Spring.

“Barry has benefited from working with a leader like Mario, and we are confident he is well prepared to continue Parmer Lane’s tradition of providing an outstanding education for its students,” Dupre said.

Acosta said some of his best experiences come from reuniting with his former students as they continue to lead successful and productive lives.

“When I first came to Pflugerville, one of the guys that I had coached was teaching at one of our elementaries, so that’s a really big reward for me in knowing that he’s successful and he’s done an outstanding job,” he said. “I walked into his classroom I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years – it had actually been more like 10 – and he looked at me and said, ‘Coach Acosta!’ and then he stopped the classroom and he said, ‘Students, this is Mr. Acosta, he was my high school football coach. He was the reason I went into teaching.’ It was really emotional part of my life.”