The Spirit Shack. The muraled mountain leading to the upper yard. The garden boxes, profuse with herbs, veggies, and adoration. The auditorium, home of meals, assemblies, book fairs, and school plays. The handball courts, tetherball poles, and tree-blanketed havens. The annual Halloween Carnival and Track and Field Day. The center of the canyon’s community of kiddos, Topanga Elementary Charter School, commences this school year with new principal Nancy Farish, who takes the chair with vision, determination, and heart.
Farish now begins her twenty-sixth year in education (not including her initial training years as a teacher’s assistant). She joined Topanga Elementary in April to close out the 2024-2025 school year, and is beginning this school year with a comfortable sense of the community, the needs, and the atmosphere. Throughout her career, Farish has dedicated herself to the elementary years, focusing on this fundamental period of human development.
“Kids have a lot of joy in them,” she said. “They have a passion to learn, which is why I stayed in elementary school all these years.”
She reminds her students that every day is a new day, encouraging their best performance both as young learners and young people. “It’s nice to have that connection with them and to see them evolve as little humans doing great things,” she added.
Small but mighty, the school has persisted through the many challenges thrown its way in recent years, from the recent January fire, to atmospheric rivers and flooding, the Covid quarantine, and the 2019 Woolsey Fire, when my friends and I, then-fifth graders, stood on our mothers’ cars in the school parking lot and stared awe-struck at the plumes of smoke in the distance.
“Whether it’s rain or fire, the community has experienced many challenges, but that has also brought in many moments of strength,” she commented. “Through it all, the school community and neighborhood have come together to support each other.”
Farish noticed, however, that a steady decrease in enrollment required attention, and she entered her time at Topanga Elementary with a key word in mind: restoration.
“My goal is to increase enrollment, to restore trust in parents that we’re a great school, to restore energy,” she said. She also plans to address the playgrounds and school layout, adding grassy areas and a track, and contributing to the school’s general upkeep.
In addition to increasing enrollment, she aims to support the school in continuing to excel by focusing on academic rigor. On the California School Dashboard (californiaschooldashboard.org), TECS has consistently received very high academic ratings in language arts and math, a testament to the team of devoted teachers and their daily lessons. Farish plans to create ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers, and to support the school’s many enrichment programs. The parent-funded TEP (Topanga Enrichment Programs) maintains these hands-on learning opportunities as an integral and robust part of the students’ curriculum, adding an art program, physical education, computer lab, science lab, and gardening activities to the students’ weekly schedules. “I’m so thankful they work together to provide all these enrichments for the programs,” she said. “It’s a special kind of learning that a lot of other schools don’t have.”
The students’ inner wellbeing is foremost for Farish. “Our number one focus is on mental health,” stated Farish resolutely. “Our students need to feel like they belong, mentally healthy, so they are able to learn. Wellness and balance is always a priority.”
The joy this profession brings Nancy Farish is clear. To work in education is a uniquely special path for its direct impact on upcoming generations. My own memories of Topanga Elementary are crystal clear and beautiful, and I’m excited to see my little alma mater in hands as qualified and caring as hers.
