Change in schools can be good
Published 8:14 pm Thursday, July 16, 2015
Change can sometimes be good, and we have reason to hope a number of recent administrative shifts in Suffolk Public Schools will work out for the good of everyone.
The School Board recently announced the changes that will fill open positions, and then fill the openings created by those changes.
Most of the changes cascaded from Kevin Alston’s retirement from the chief of operations position.
Douglas Dohey, director of secondary leadership, was promoted to chief of operations.
Stenette Byrd, principal of King’s Fork High School, replaces Dohey. Ronald Leigh, principal at Hillpoint Elementary School, replaces Byrd.
A number of assistant principals also were promoted to principals.
Catherine Pichon, assistant principal at Mack Benn Jr. Elementary School, was promoted to principal at Hillpoint to replace Leigh. Jessica Avery, assistant principal at Elephant’s Fork Elementary School, was promoted to principal there to replace Andre Skinner, the new director of the Pruden Center for Industry and Technology.
Kinsey Bynum, an assistant principal from Northampton City Public Schools, will serve as principal of Turlington Woods School, replacing Pamela Lipscomb, who resigned.
Earling Hunter, a teacher at King’s Fork High School, was promoted to principal at Lakeland High School, replacing Michael Blount, who resigned.
Antoine London, a teacher in Norfolk Public Schools, will serve as assistant principal at John F. Kennedy Middle School, replacing Roosevelt Brown.
Six assistant principals were also shifted to accommodate the above reassignments, as well as one resignation.
We’re thrilled that most of the promotions came from within the school district, which is evidence of a committed and well trained workforce and an administration that wants to reward its top educators with challenging and gratifying new duties.
Those who are enduring change, we hope, will see it as an opportunity to learn from new places, faces and experiences.