A founding director of a charter school in San Diego County will become Tomales and Bodega Bay Elementary Schools’ new principal, filling a three-year-old vacancy. Amanda Massey comes to the district from High Tech High Elementary North County, where she’s been a founding director of the charter network since 2014. Shoreline Unified School District trustees voted last week to approve her $121,000 contract, effective July 1. Ms. Massey holds a master’s degree in elementary education from the University of Virginia and another in school counseling from the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Bob Raines, Shoreline’s superintendent, said there were 21 applicants for the position, and that it was Ms. Massey’s background in project-based learning that eventually won her the role. “We were able to hire somebody who knows something I don’t,” he said of the hands-on educational method that’s centered on group enterprise and rooted in collaboration between students and teachers. At Tomales Elementary, students have already begun to integrate project-based learning into the curriculum. Earlier this school year, students were asked how they could improve their school lunches. Their answer: plant a garden. Mike Marweg, the eighth-grade teacher, said his students drew up the plans and high school students voted on their favorite proposal. They built garden beds and planted kale, onions, lettuce and more outside the high school (the winter rains destroyed a majority of the crop). Mr. Marweg’s students collect data from the gardening process and then reinterpret the numbers in math and science classes. During her interview for the position, Ms. Massey said she was struck by the smaller, tight-knit community at Shoreline. And over the seven years she’s been with High Tech High, she said she’s observed the value of project-based learning. “It’s a shift in the students’ mindset,” she said. “School becomes a place they know well, where interest matters, and there’s trust. The adults believe in their  [students’] capacity for doing high-quality work. What I found is when kids leave our school, they have the confidence to introduce their ideas to groups of adults.” Shoreline has been seeking a replacement for the two principal positions since Jane Realon left in 2014. James Patterson, better known as “JP,” has since served as an interim principal at Tomales Elementary while Nancy Wolf was the interim principal at Bodega Bay School.