Student Spotlight: Meet Colorado’s High School Principal of the Year ToniJo Niccoli 

When ToniJo Niccoli goes to work as a high school principal, she doesn’t spend her day behind a closed door in the biggest office of the administrators’ suite. She stands at a podium in the hallway. She wants her students to know her. And, more importantly, to know how much she cares about them. “It’s truly like a small family,” said Niccoli, a doctor of education (EdD) candidate at CU Denver.

At Niccoli’s school, she thinks of everyone as family—and no one is left behind. Since she took on the task in 2017 of improving student outcomes at New Meridian High School, an alternative high school in the St. Vrain Valley School District, its on-time graduation rate has rocketed up from a dismal 12.5% to nearly 90%. Meanwhile, its dropout rate has fallen from one-in-four to under 3%, which is below the national average. In recognition of these accomplishments, Niccoli was recently named the 2026 Colorado High School Principal of the Year by the Colorado Association of School Executives.

Fostering a family-like environment has enabled Niccoli to lead the deep change that’s resulted in New Meridian’s success. But before she could shepherd that transformation for her school, she had to discover how to authentically bring the caring parent part of herself into her role as principal. As she continued to progress in her career, she knew she wanted to hold onto that value, which ultimately led her to CU Denver.

The university’s online Leadership for Educational Organizations doctoral concentration shared her commitment to authenticity in leadership. She also found an opportunity to continue learning and genuinely grow as a professional through online classes that fostered meaningful connection, while still being designed to work around her busy schedule. “The best part for me has just been feeling super connected and supported, but also pushed and challenged,” Niccoli said.

Becoming a Leader

Niccoli has always been up for a challenge. She started her career as a special education teacher and then took her first leadership position as the chair of her school’s special education department. From there, she became an assistant principal. At first, she struggled to find herself as a leader. “When I was a novice administrator, I tried really hard to boundary myself,” Niccoli said. “It was like, ‘Here’s my professional life, and then here’s my personal life.’” A colleague noticed this and suggested she allow herself to be more genuine. “He was like, ‘ToniJo, you have one life … just be who you are.’”

For Niccoli, that meant being a mom. “I’m going to treat these children how I want my daughter to be treated,” Niccoli said. “I’m going to love you fiercely, and I’m going to hold you accountable.” She didn’t know it yet, but that approach would be exactly what New Meridian High School needed.

An Innovative New Chapter at New Meridian

Niccoli wasn’t looking for a new job when she saw a posting for an assistant principal position at an alternative high school in Longmont, but the non-traditional environment of New Meridian appealed to her. When she started the assistant principal in 2017, she was inspired by how hard the staff worked to support students, but she knew they needed new strategies to improve the then-lagging student outcomes.

She called on her staff for ideas and dubbed the resulting plan “Operation Graduation.” It’s an effort aimed at not letting details about students’ paths to graduation fall through the cracks. She required every student to select a staff member to serve as their individual graduation coach, someone they could talk to who would help them stay on track. “That can be a secretary, a teacher, a custodian, a counselor—anyone in our building,” Niccoli said.

She calls it an all-hands-on-deck effort. Then, her team created a tracking system for what each student needs to do to graduate. This helps give clear information about what classes students must take and pass—and when—to graduate on time. “Our whole staff knows exactly what every child needs,” Niccoli said.

Her approach goes beyond that, as well. As principal, a role she was promoted to in 2021, she also makes sure that school is a place where students enjoy being. “It’s really fun to be at New Meridian,” Niccoli said. On Fridays, the staff play music over the intercom, and students who guess the song correctly get candy. The school also prioritizes giving awards and prizes to create a celebratory atmosphere. And, as she promised herself earlier in her career, it’s the kind of environment she’d want her own daughter to be in. “We just take a lot of pride in loving our students,” Niccoli said. “It’s somebody’s child. It’s somebody’s life.”

Advancing Her Own Education

Even with such radical transformation in student outcomes at her school, Niccoli remained committed to growing in her career. She values continuous learning, which is part of the reason she applied to CU Denver’s Leadership for Educational Organizations EdD concentration in the School of Education & Human Development. She would join a group of educational leaders, all from North Colorado and many from the same school district.

They met online but they were also geographically close to her and working in a context she understood. “CU Denver staff has just done such a good job to showcase others’ learnings, to dive deep into some work, and to work on plans that could have positive impacts on our own schools or on our own leadership styles,” Niccoli said.

The program prioritized authenticity and collaboration, which meant she was able to both develop her own approach to leadership and be exposed to others’ approaches, too. “I’m pretty grateful for that,” she said. It meant she could learn from her peers, while always staying true to herself and the approach to school leadership she knew felt right to her. “Who you are is who you will be as a leader,” said Jim Christensen, one of Niccoli’s instructors. “[Our strategy is to] develop that and make it the very best it can be.”

For Niccoli, the very best is genuinely connecting with her students to help them succeed—whether that’s by empowering every person on her staff as a graduation coach or being available to her students personally as they pass through the hallways on their way to class. “It’s all heart and soul,” Christensen said of Niccoli. “She has turned that entire school into a success story.”