NEW SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT TO START FROM MAMMOTH TO ACTON-AGUA DULCE.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

ACTON -- Coming from a community 8,000 feet high where students regularly take off to go skiing, Stan Halperin will move to a drier climate when he takes over as Acton-Agua Dulce's new schools superintendent next week.

Halperin, 57, superintendent of the 1,250-student school district in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., starts at his new job on July 17.

His to-do list should be full when he starts his job steering the 1,900-student Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District. Officials and teachers are in contract talks, student attendance is slightly below the state average and the state says Vasquez High's gym is sub-par and students can't use it.

``I'm hoping that I'll be able to come in with some ideas and directions for the district to go to help students,'' said Halperin, who has held superintendent positions at a series of schools for the past 23 years.

Halperin, who has been at Mammoth Unified School District since 2002, oversaw the creation of a charter school with flexible hours so students who ski or snowboard competitively can attend school and pursue their outside interests. The small school also has students who do motocross, photography or music on the side.

Mammoth Unified also has a dual immersion Spanish and English program at the elementary school level, and an intensive program for secondary school Hispanic students who have recently immigrated and need help learning English.

Melissa Harnett, president of the Acton-Agua Dulce school board, said the district likes Halperin because he's a creative thinker.

``He was ... able to get kids to show up more when they maybe otherwise would not have,'' she said.

For the past five years, students at Vasquez High have been in portable classrooms because of a lack of funding to build a permanent facility.

``Obviously we want to build our own facility, and we'll see how we can get there,'' Halperin said.

Halperin was on a final list of six candidates given to the school board, after a committee made up of members from the school district and parents picked through a bigger list of candidates.

John Hutak has been the district's interim superintendent since last fall, replacing Linda Wagner, who quit to take over at Keppel Union School District. Hutak announced earlier this year that he wanted to return to his consultant business.

``We've already had some good superintendents, and I think we wanted to continue with a superintendent who was going to be good dealing with personnel,'' Harnett said, ``and who the staff would support,'' Harnett said.

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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