Dr. Kirk Ankeney was named Principal at the School of International Studies at the San Diego High School Educational Complex in August, 2009. He was also appointed as principal at the School of Media, Visual & Performing Arts in August, 2011.

Prior to this appointment, he was Executive Director for Curriculum and Instruction in the San Diego Unified School District central office. He previously served as the District’s curriculum leader for history/social studies, as a vice principal, and as history teacher at both the middle and high school levels.

A former chair of the California Curriculum Commission, Ankeney has published numerous articles and lessons and led scores of workshops on myriad topics in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. He was chairman of the state’s history-social science Curriculum Framework Criteria and Evaluation Committee (CFCC), served on the Assessment Review Panel (ARP) for the history-social science assessments for California schools (CSTs), and is on the board of directors of the Friends of the California State Archives.

A product of San Diego Unified School District schools, he earned a B.A. in History at UCSD, an M.A. and Ed.D. in Educational Leadership at SDSU (where he also completed coursework for an M.A. in history), and additional units in history and education from UCLA, USC, UCSD, Penn, the University of Virginia, Wake Forest, and UCSB. He is the recipient of two NEH summer scholar designations, two National Fellowships for Independent Study in the Humanities, and two Gilder Lehrman seminar awards. Ankeney returned to public education in the fall of 2007 after an absence of nine years, during which he served as director of curriculum and instruction/vice president of district partnerships for an educational publisher.