Former Columbia ES student returns as principal

When Michael Astudillo started his new job as principal of Columbia Elementary School in Annandale earlier this summer, he had a sense of déjà vu, reports News4 Washington, the local NBC affiliate. 

That’s because Astudillo was a student at Columbia. On a tour of the school with News4’s Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey, he recalled walking down the same hallways. 

His parents had immigrated from Colombia, and Astudillo said they took night classes to learn English while his father worked three jobs. “The couple decided Annandale was the best place to raise their two children, and Columbia Elementary became a haven for young Michael,” Carey reports. 

Astudillo enrolled at Columbia as a kindergartner in 1982. As a fifth-grader, he was student council vice president. 

His time at the school was not all smooth, however. He wound up in the principal’s office after making “some bad decisions.” And he still has a scar from an incident in the sixth grade when he ran down the hall to get to recess and slammed his head into the door. 

Astudillo checks in with summer school students at Columbia. [News4]

He has fond memories of Columbia as a welcoming community and says it still is. “It was like a home away from home.” 

That’s the atmosphere he hopes to create as principal, he told News4. He wants the students to see someone who has literally been in their same shoes – who rode his bike down the same roads, went to the same pool – and to know they can grow up to be anything they want, even the school principal. 

After Columbia, Astudillo attended Holmes Middle School and graduated from Annandale High School in 1995, states his biography on the Columbia website. After completing his undergraduate work at Virginia Tech, his career in FCPS began in 2003 as a teacher at Chantilly High School. 

He’s also been a coach, student government sponsor, mentor, assessment coach, testing coordinator, activities and athletics director, and assistant principal at both the elementary and high school levels.