The month of October is National Principal’s Month and during this special observance Vance County Schools honors its 17 principals who lead our local public schools.
Principals are the instructional leaders of their schools. Their leadership and vision are vital to the success of their students and their school faculty and staff members during each school year. All of our principals work very hard each and every day as they must complete a huge range of tasks and make important decisions that affect the working conditions of their employees and the academic success of their students.
On any given day, principals must deal with tasks which include classrooms observations, teacher and staff evaluations, meetings with teachers on strategies to most effectively teach their students, bus duty and car traffic duty each morning and afternoon, dealing with student discipline issues, completing necessary paperwork for reports to the local district and state educational officials, dealing with staff grievances, interviewing and hiring new employees for staff vacancies, meeting with parents, monitoring cafeteria activities during lunch periods, checking on the security of the school building and grounds, discussing needs for school building maintenance with custodial staff members and the list goes on and on. A principal must indeed be able to prioritize their work and be effective in dealing with multiple tasks at one time. To complete their work, principals arrive at school well before the beginning of the instructional day around 8 a.m. and leave well after the end of the instructional day and closure of the school’s office at 5 p.m. They also must attend after school activities that may stretch well into the night and occur on weekends.
For all of these dedicated efforts, Vance County Schools asks our community to join with our public school system in thanking our principals for their work in leading our schools to mold the futures of our children.
We praise the efforts of our principals throughout the year, but during this month we want to especially recognize them. They include:
- Eric Pierce, principal of Western Vance High School
- Michael Bullard, principal of Vance County Early College High School
- Stephanie Ayscue, principal of Southern Vance High School
- Michael Applewhite, principal of Northern Vance High School
- Larry Webb, principal of Eaton-Johnson Middle School
- John Hargrove, principal of Henderson Middle School
- Rey Horner, principal of STEM Early High School
- Anne Garrison, principal of Zeb Vance Elementary School
- Marylaura McKoon, principal of E.O. Young Jr. Elementary School
- Clarence Hicks, principal of L.B. Yancey Elementary School
- Dean Thomas, principal of E.M. Rollins Elementary School
- Heddie Somerville, principal of Pinkston Street Elementary School
- Harold Thompson Jr., principal of New Hope Elementary School
- Michael Putney, principal of Dabney Elementary School
- Crystal Richardson, principal of Clarke Elementary School
- David Westbrook, principal of Carver Elementary School
- Kristen Boyd, principal of Aycock Elementary School
Vance County Schools’ current Principal of the Year, Dr. Larry Webb, leads this distinguished group. During last school year, he was selected as one of the top eight principals in the state of North Carolina. He was chosen as the North Central Region Principal of the Year for 2013-2014. Dr. Webb was honored, along with the other seven regional principals of the year, last spring during a special event held in Raleigh. He is shown in the accompanying photo with Dr. June St. Clair Atkinson, the state superintendent of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, during his recognition at the state event.
We are very proud of Dr. Webb’s achievement in representing our school system and hail him as a shining example of the outstanding group of instructional leaders in our schools.