As we begin the 2025-2026 school year we would like to welcome our new dean of students and principal! If you are not already aware Pitman High School has a new Dean of Students, Mr. Sulieman and Principal Mrs. Arakelian!
We are so excited to welcome them to our school and to be a part of our amazing school community. To welcome them, our Pitman High School Journalism class decided for our very first article of the 2025-2026 school year we would hear from both Mr. Sulieman and Mrs. Arakelian to learn a little more about them as they are such an important part of Pitman Highschool.
Mrs Arakelian and Mr. Sulieman are working hard to get to know each and every student as well as become a part of our school community. To help them do that we want to show the same courtesy and try to get to know them a little better. Furthermore here is some background on our new principal and dean of students.
Mrs. Arakelian has a long background in education before she came to Pitman. She has originally never imagined being a Principal. Mrs. Arkaelian began her educational career at Medeiros Elementary when it first opened as an instructional coach, then became a third grade teacher.
Our previous principal Mrs. Freeman and our new principal Mrs. Arakelian actually worked together as third grade teachers at Medeiros Elementary and are still very good friends till this day.
For the last three years Mrs. Arakelian has been the assistant principal for Turlock Highschool and prior to this she worked at Cunningham for three years as the assistant principal.
What inspired your career in education?
Are you in any way curious what led your principal to want to work with each and every one of the students on campus? After asking Mrs. Arakelian about her career in education, we got a better insight into her educational journey.
When she was younger she worked for an after school program at Cunningham. “There was a little boy I just adored and that’s when I knew I wanted to be a teacher.”
However, as a diabetic she didn’t know if she wanted to cure diabetes and go into science or work with children. Therefore going into college she was undeclared. After studying science she came to the realization that science was not her strong suit and working with children was the right career path for her.
What are you most excited for coming to Pitman?
At the interviews we were most excited to hear why someone would be so excited to come to Pitman, and this was by far our best answered question! Mrs. Araklian’s response was inspiring and almost a breath of fresh air to see how genuinely excited she was to be here.
“When I first found out I got the job in April I was actually on an ivy league trip with Pitman students! Throughout the end of April, May and even the beginning of June it felt like I was in both places, Turlock High and Pitman while giving work over to Turlock’s new assistant principal and taking on things from Mrs. Freeman. It was a lot of preparation and I was trying to learn as much as I could but overall I just couldn’t wait for the students to get here.”
To conclude her answer to this question she described the students returning to school like Christmas morning, “It felt like being here was planning for Christmas and the students getting here was like Christmas morning, this first week has been wonderful!”
Did you know that our new dean was a former student at Pitman?
The Dean of students, Mr. Sulieman attended Pitman High-School unknowing that he would come back here in adulthood. During the interview with him, we found out more about him and his life before returning here. Sulieman was a science teacher at Roosevelt Jr. High-School, in Modesto for five years.
He has experience being an administrator at Downey for three years and also oversaw counseling as well as Special Education.
He spent some time coaching Track & Field along with Basketball at Turlock Jr. High-School. Interestingly, he also has experience working in a laboratory and food safety.
After talking about his experiences, we dove into what he’s most excited about while working here,“ I’m most excited about bringing positive energy back to Pitman. I, myself, was a former PHS student and I graduated here in 2011. Now coming back as the dean I want to show students help, focus on benefitting them, their needs, also while teaching students’ skills while ensuring that every student is happy, trying to live their best life and be as safe, responsible and successful as possible.In doing so, I want to create a safe and happy campus and honestly, the student clientele was very similar when I went here. I noticed that any student will interact with any other student which is a lot of mingling compared to other schools. I love that I can connect with the students as a younger staff member as well”.
Next, as a student, I wanted to ask how he plans to support us, academically and personally,
“I have my counseling credential, I’m a counselor, I do have experience with counseling. I plan on being here, empathetic and kind build relationships. If there are any issues, I would tell them what they did right and help to improve that situation, no matter the extent. As a dean with former counseling experience, I also look into what can make students be college and career ready. I take steps like talking to students about their plans. Goal setting is a big thing and really just being empathetic, while building trust and being a good listener to students. I strive to keep a positive culture and show students I have good intentions. I’m big on mutual respect that goes both ways. I feel like I’m really young at heart, I listen to Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, and lots of hip hop.
In High-School I just wanted to listen to something up-beat to get me going but now I feel like I want to listen to songs with a deeper meaning. One of my favorite Kendrick songs is “Fear” because it talks about his perspective and how he grew up, and how his fears have changed since he was a kid. Songs like these really help me. I like the deeper meaning”.
Suliemen is extremely passionate about his job. With his background and achievements, as a student, I feel very supported and heard when listening to him talk about himself personally and his hopes for Pitman.
If you could add one class to Pitman, what would it be?
This is a good question, I would add an engaging class or a skill building class, especially because that’s important to me as a former counselor. I would like a class focusing on mental health, communication, and coping skills. Lots of students don’t know the effect of things they say and how deep it cuts.it Having a class on how to appropriately use social media and build healthy habits or how to deal with grieve loss would benefit so many students. The main theme of the class would be mental health and social skills while building a successful and strong society. The idea of having an open class informative talk about current events and how to deal with them, no arguments, focusing on communicating and what’s happening in the world would have a powerful effect on the students.”
Suliemens main goal at this school is to empower students.
Whats a book movie or song that impacted you?
The movie that I would reference to shape education is Freedom Writers. I just love the way the teacher engages with students that are different, and that is how I want to be. The teacher understands their perspective and engages with them no matter their background. I want to be looked at as a role model for all Pitman students, someone people can look to and trust. The teacher is all in for the students to build connections and trust they never had before and I want to have a similar impact.”
Lastly we ended the interview with him saying, “I’m really pumped to be at Pitman. I want to build trust between me and students, be a resource for anything students need whether it’s college and/or career goals report and just have a safe place for students. I want to be the dean that every student of every background can come to”.
Overall we are so excited to welcome these very important people to our school. It was so much fun getting to know Mrs. Arakliean and Mr. Suliman, if you see them around campus make sure to introduce yourself and say hello!