DRAPER — As Saint John the Baptist Middle School on the Skaggs Catholic Center opens its doors for the new school year, Vanessa Jacobs will be guiding it the new principal.
Jacobs is no stranger to the Skaggs Catholic Center; she has been part of the community as a parent and as an educator since 2012.
“My family moved from Louisiana to Lehi about 15 years ago,” she said, adding that her journey into the Utah Catholic Schools system started first as a parent and then professionally.
Jacobs holds a master’s degree in history and a certificate in administrative leadership. All three of her children have been educated at the Skaggs Catholic Center. The oldest graduated in 2020, the middle child graduated last year, and the youngest will graduate in 2026.
Even after moving to Utah, Jacobs continued teaching online in a community college in Louisiana.
“Someone told me that they were looking for a Spanish teacher [at Juan Diego Catholic High School], and my undergraduate is in history and Spanish, so I went ahead and applied,” Jacobs said.
During her interview, she realized she wasn’t as proficient in Spanish as she is in English. “I hadn’t used Spanish in a long time, so they picked another applicant, … but in that interview I said, ‘I am getting back to the teaching in person scene, and if you need a sub I am happy to do it.’”
The school took her up on her offer. “They called me and I started covering a teacher that was on maternity leave, but soon after that I became a fulltime teacher,” Jacobs said.
She taught two AP world history classes, and last year became assistant principal at Juan Diego Catholic High School, which also is on the Skaggs Catholic Center campus.
“So, from starting as a substitute now I am a principal,” she said adding that to be guiding St. John the Baptist Middle School is both a blessing and a humbling experience.
“I think I am up to the challenge, but to know that the social, emotional, spiritual and educational goals and progress of the students falls under my responsibility – on one hand I think to myself ‘this is a big job,’ but on the other hand this is a privilege,” Jacobs said. “For me, serving the community is not just a job, it is a vocation.”
The first thing that she would like to focus on as the principal is some modifications to the school’s infrastructure, she said.
“Since SJBMS collaborates with and feeds into Juan Diego Catholic High School, we are missing some major components such as a main entrance,” she said, noting that she would like to extend the middle school’s entrance on the north side, “creating a main entrance so we can have more identity as SJBMS.”
Organizing a capital campaign to fund this project will be a challenge, she said.
Another change she would like to see is “for the middle-school teachers to have a more collaborative place to work,” Jacobs said. “Right now we utilize the high school faculty center,” but she wants to have a special room just for the middle-school teachers.
In addition, she believes that parents want to be a part of their children’s education, and she hopes to strengthen relationships with them. “They are the primary educators and they are our partners,” she said.
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