MISSION VIEJO : A Principal Sets Her Priorities

Capistrano Valley High School’s new principal prefers to play down the divisiveness resulting from a $5-million creationism-versus-evolution lawsuit filed by the school’s biology teacher.

Jessica Leadley, who started work as principal this week, says she has not noticed any ill feelings about the case filed in September in which teacher John Peloza charges that the Capistrano Unified School District violated his civil rights by forcing him to teach only the theory of evolution.

Leadley, 42, says she wants to move beyond the case to concentrate on preparing the school’s 2,538 students for an increasingly competitive global economy. She also plans to work on improving programs for low-achieving students and beefing up gang prevention activities.

District Supt. James Fleming said Leadley is the district’s first female high school principal, but she plays that down, too.

“I’ve held many administrative positions and I’ve been hired based on my qualifications and I find this position no exception,” she said.

A Minnesota native, Leadley joined the district in 1988 as an assistant principal at Dana Hills High School. Before that, she had held administrative and teaching jobs for 17 years in Michigan and Texas, as well as in the Cajon Valley Union and Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified school districts.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s from Bowling Green State University.

Leadley was selected from among more than 30 candidates to replace Thomas Anthony, who was named the district’s director of secondary schools.

Fleming said one of the reasons Leadley was named to the post is her ability to “bring people together.”

“Her main challenge is to pull the faculty and students and community together and be sure the focus is on the mission and that the distractions are minimized,” Fleming said.