Yuma High, Vista High to swap principals for 2026-27 school year

Two of Yuma Union High School District’s largest campuses will swap principals for the 2026-27 school year, with Michael Fritz moving from Yuma High School to Vista High School and Marci Sanchez stepping into the top job at Yuma High on July 1.

The governing board approved the leadership change in February and March, a move that keeps both schools under administrators who already know the district’s students, families and campus demands. That matters in a system that serves more than 11,000 students at seven high schools and uses Arizona’s A-F accountability grades as a public measure of school performance.

Fritz leaves Yuma High after five years as principal and a longer run inside the district. He started his education career in 2004 at Cibola High School, where he taught health, wilderness survival and physical education and coached soccer and football. He joined the Yuma Union High School District administrative ranks in 2016 and became Yuma High’s principal in 2020.

Under Fritz, Yuma High saw overall improvement, including a B in Arizona’s school letter-grade system, which is built from an annual achievement profile for each public school. That performance marker gives the transfer real weight for families watching academics and school outcomes, not just personnel changes. Yuma High also carries a large student load, with about 1,100 students, including 248 migrant students, according to the school’s district profile.

Sanchez brings a different but equally deep Yuma connection to the campus. She is a Yuma High alumna and third-generation alumna with 25 years in education. She began teaching health and physical education at San Luis High School in 2007, entered leadership in 2011, and later served as assistant principal at Kofa High School and San Luis High School before moving to Yuma High in 2022.

At Yuma High, Sanchez has served as assistant principal for academics and overseen academics and exceptional student services, placing her in a role tied directly to classroom results and student support. She also has a personal link to the school’s history as a member of the 1990 softball state championship team, which is honored in the Yuma High School Athletic Hall of Fame.

Vista High’s own school materials identify David King as its current principal, underscoring that Fritz’s move is a planned campus-to-campus reassignment rather than an outside hire. The district’s five-member governing board meets the second Wednesday of each month at 5:15 p.m. at 3150 S. Avenue A in Yuma, where the transition was set in motion for the new school year.