WJCC Appoints Three Elementary School Principals

By Amber Lester Kennedy Thursday, June 09, 2011

New principals have been appointed at three Williamsburg-James City County elementary schools for the 2011-2012 school year.

The new principals will take over at Stonehouse Elementary, J. Blaine Blayton Elementary and Matthew Whaley Elementary.

Kim Pickles, currently serving as vice principal at D.J. Montague Elementary, will serve as principal at Stonehouse. She has 15 years of experience as an instructor and administrator, six of which have been with WJCC. She assumes the position vacated by Elizabeth Beckhouse, who will retire at the end of the current school year.

Paula Huffman, currently principal at Garrison Mill Elementary School in Cobb County, Ga., will become principal of Blayton Elementary. Superintendent Steven Constantino also came from Cobb County, where he last served as deputy superintendent. She replaces Jeffrey Carroll, who will become assistant principal at Lafayette High School.

Scott Thorpe, who currently serves as principal of Chipman Elementary School in Wicomico County in Maryland, will be the next principal of Matthew Whaley Elementary. He replaces Kathleen Noonan, who also announced her retirement at the conclusion of the school year.

“Our new principals will bring a combined 55 years of instructional and administrative experience to their new responsibilities, including distinguished records of leadership and achievement,” Constantino said in a press release. “We are privileged to have them join our team, and look forward to working with them in the coming school year.”

Pickles came to WJCC in 2005 after serving eight years as a special education teacher in Newport News and Norfolk public schools. She served as interim principal at Toano Middle School in the 2006-07 school year, then as assistant principal at Matoaka for three years. Her past year was spent as assistant principal at D.J. Montague.

She earned a general education degree at Western Carolina University in 1995, a bachelor’s degree in special education from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C. in 1997 and a master’s degree in educational administration from Old Dominion University in 2004. She is pursuing a doctor of education degree at the College of William and Mary with a major in educational policy, planning and leadership. Last fall, she was a presenter at the Consortium for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation (CREATE) conference of the National Evaluation Institute, where her topic was “The Legal Aspects of Documentation in Teacher Evaluation.”

Huffman has served as principal at Garrison Mill Elementary since 2008, during which time the school earned Georgia’s highest academic achievement honors – the Gold and Platinum awards. A school can earn a Platinum Award when 98 percent or more of the students meet or exceed state academic standards.

From 2004 to 2008, she served as assistant principal at Rocky Mount and Garrison Mill elementary schools in the Cobb County system. From 1997 to 2004, she served as media specialist in Nicholson Elementary School. From 1990 to 1997, she worked as a media specialist and second and third grade instructor in the Coweta County School System in Senoia, Ga.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga. in 1990. She earned a master’s degree in library media from Georgia State University in 1994, and her specialist degree in school administration in 2002 from Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn.

Prior to joining the staff at Chipman Elementary, Thorpe served as principal of Pemberton Elementary in Wicomico County for six years. In 2003, he received the Governor’s Citation for Administrator with Achievement in Gifted Education. From 1999 to 2004, he served as assistant principal at Wicomico’s Northwestern, West Salisbury and Pemberton elementary schools. His career began in 1992 as a teacher at Lunenburg Middle School in Lunenburg County, Va., then he served as an instructor at Wicomico’s East Salisbury Elementary from 1994 to 1999.

Thorpe earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and a master’s of education degree in administration and supervision from Salisbury University in Maryland.