Dr. Cherese Wiltshire is the associate principal in charge of the newly branded Leadership Education Advocacy Determination (LEAD) Academy formerly known as SJA.
This year is her second year being a part of Hoover’s administration team and she couldn’t be more honored to be a part of it. She also oversees the English and science departments for Hoover. She has lived in City Heights since she finished graduate school at UCSD, and ever since then she had passed Hoover multiple times and never imagined she would end up here since she used to work at an elementary school. But she always wanted to work at a place with diversity and when the opportunity of a leadership position opened at Hoover, she answered the call and jumped for the position she holds now.
With her position, Dr. Wiltshire wishes to bring many positive changes to Hoover, with the biggest being bringing a culture where students feel safe, supported and know they can accomplish whatever they set their minds to. Secondly, she’d like to make Hoover a place where students can find out how they want to define themselves as individuals. Overall, she wants to create an inclusive, positive place in which people want to be a part of now or in the future. Though she wishes to bring big changes to Hoover, she has also found present Hoover very rewarding. The first being able to connect with the students, and so far has learned so much about them, their dreams, and their aspirations. She is quite knowledgeable but still believes in learning more from the younger generations, that’s why she is quite inspired when learning the different perspectives and ways of thinking from Hoover students.
She also wishes to inspire all students with a supportive recommendation which is “Take a risk, it’s scary but it will pay off, our biggest learning happens when we do something that we have never done before.” She believes that with this piece of advice students will be able to see what they are capable of and also learn about themselves and grow as humans. Dr. Wiltshire is someone all students can be inspired by, not only is she a trained dancer in hip hop and west african dance, and performs with a samba troop, she is also a kind, knowledgeable associate principal who deeply cares about Hoover and its students.
