West University Elementary School is getting its first new principal in nearly a quarter-century — and he has a familiar name and a West U pedigree.
Scott Disch, 37, will start full-time at WUES in June, once he’s free of his duties as dean of instruction/assistant principal at Westside High School. He was named Houston ISD’s West District assistant principal of the year in March. Currently he’s splitting his time between West U and Westside.
Disch comes from a well-known sports education family in the West U-Bellaire area. His dad is a West U resident, Dr. James “Jimmy” Disch of Rice University’s Department of Sport Management, who has run popular youth sports camps in the area for decades in addition to pursuing his academic career.
Scott was raised in West U and received a master of arts in teaching degree in physical education from Rice in 2008. His career has included teaching at HISD’s Grady Middle School in the Galleria-Tanglewood area, where he won acclaim for his work with young athletes, earning a Major League Baseball RBI Program grant to start a club team at the school. While at Grady, he also won the Positive Coaching Alliance’s Scotty Zornes Award.
Before being named dean of instruction at Westside last August, he was dean of the school’s Engineering and Geosciences Academy.
Disch succeeds John Threet, who announced his retirement in the spring after 23 years in the position. His contract will officially end Aug. 31, but Disch will have firm hold of the reins over the summer, Essentials is told.
In recent years, Threet had come under fire from many families for what they believed were unnecessarily rigorous academics for grade school — characterized by heavy homework loads, minimal recess periods, and a lack of emphasis on arts programs as part of the WUES curriculum.
— Charlotte Aguilar
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