Veteran Educator Jim Judd Named Next Principal of Wasatch High School

Wasatch High School has maintained a graduation rate as high as 96.5% and ranks 26th among 138 Utah high schools. Jim Judd, the educator now tasked with sustaining those numbers, also inherits a challenge no Wasatch principal has faced in more than a century: a brand-new high school opening roughly two miles away.

The Wasatch County School District named Judd as Wasatch High's next principal on April 9. He officially steps in July 1, succeeding Ryan Bishop, who was named the Utah High School Activities Association's seventh executive director on March 27, effective the same date. Bishop, a Heber City native with 27 years in education, had held the Wasatch High principal's post since 2024, replacing Rob Cuff, who is retiring after 25 years of service to the organization including 17 as executive director.

The chain of departures runs deeper. Before Bishop, Justin Kelly served as Wasatch High's principal; Kelly is now heading to lead Iron Horse High School, the district's first new high school in more than 100 years, scheduled to open in August 2026 near 1000 West along state Route 113 west of Heber. That school is a direct response to surging enrollment: district-wide 9-12 student counts are projected to reach 3,231 by fall 2026. While a University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute analysis projects Utah school enrollment will fall 0.6% per year on average from 2023 to 2033, Wasatch County is bucking that trend entirely.

Judd is not waiting for July 1 to begin shaping the school. He is already splitting each day between Timpanogos Middle School, where he has served as principal since fall 2021, and Wasatch High, where he is already participating in administrative decisions.

His career in Wasatch County dates to 2000, when he and his wife Jan relocated to Heber City from Salt Lake. He began teaching science at Jordan School District in 1996 following a Samoan-speaking LDS mission in Los Angeles, then built his career here across nearly every tier of school leadership, from vice principal to principal at Rocky Mountain Middle School to director of HR and secondary education for the district before landing at Timpanogos in 2021.

At Timpanogos, leading a school of roughly 1,000 students, Judd built a measurable record. In 2024, education company Solution Tree named Timpanogos Middle a Model Professional Learning Community at Work, placing it among approximately 600 schools and districts across the U.S. and Canada to hold that designation. He also hired Yuri Jenson as a Spanish liaison four years ago, a targeted effort to strengthen ties with the school's Hispanic community.

His style inside the building is deliberate. Judd sets up a mobile desk in the hallways, learns students' first names, and quietly distributes candy to a small circle of kids on a basis discreet enough that only about 50 of his 1,000 current students know it happens.

Wasatch High was founded January 28, 1908, when students first gathered in classrooms above the Heber Mercantile. It now serves roughly 2,600 students at 930 S 500 E and remains the only comprehensive high school in a district covering 1,117 square miles. That distinction ends this August.