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Ross Valley teacher hired for top job at Bel Aire Elementary

El Ammari brings experience as a teacher, instructional coach and assistant principal in New York City, and later served as a principal at a San Rafael elementary school.

Emily Lavin
By EMILY LAVIN · 1 min read

The Reed Union School District has hired Emilia El Ammari, an intervention and English-language development teacher in the Ross Valley School District, to serve as the new principal of Bel Aire Elementary School.

El Ammari is set to start July 1 and will replace John Di Cosmo, who has been in the role since 2021 and will step down June 30. Her annual salary will be $195,786, which includes a $1,500 annual stipend for her master’s degree.

El Ammari said she is looking forward to getting to know the Bel Aire community, describing herself as a “relationships person.”

“I’m really excited to kind of get past those first initial pieces and really develop meaningful relationships and get to know my staff and the students and the families, and I want everyone to get to know me and feel comfortable and safe,” she said.

El Ammari, 42, currently works as an intervention and English-language development teacher at Manor Elementary School, a TK-5 school serving about 250 students in Fairfax. In that role, she works with students of all grade levels to provide additional support, and she coaches classroom teachers to help them improve general education instruction.

She also serves as the Ross Valley School District’s English-language development coordinator, managing testing for English-language learners, running events for multilingual families and coaching staff on how to support multilingual students.

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A version of this story appeared in the May 20, 2026, print edition of The Ark. See something wrong? Request a correction.
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