Published: May 14, 2009 11:50 am      

PV school to get new principal

Pauls Valley — Experience was considered a key element in the choice for a replacement to step in as the leader at a Pauls Valley school with the upcoming retirement of a longtime local educator and administrator.

Now set to be the new principal at Jackson Elementary is Mitzi Winters after the PV Board of Education gave her the nod Wednesday night.

Winters, an educator in Wynnewood for the past several years, was selected to replace the retiring Elaine Kennedy.

“She brings experience,” PV Superintendent Bobby Russell said about Winters.

“Mitzi has had the opportunity to work in several grade levels. She’s also been an early childhood teacher. She has worked with this grade level and actually has her degrees in elementary and early childhood,” he said.

Russell also sees Winters’ recent experience as a big plus.

Specifically, she’s been the middle school principal in Wynnewood for the past six years.

Altogether Winters has been working in the Wynnewood School District for the last 15 years.

Included in that time she’s served as an administrator for an early childhood center when Wynnewood operated a facility in nearby Joy and worked in the areas of athletics and extracurricular activities.

“She’ll have a nice understanding of students, what they’re going through, that come to her from (preschool and kindergarten) and what students are needing that are going into the fourth, fifth and sixth grade,” the PV superintendent said.

He describes Winters’ experience as a “really nice fit for us” in the role of principal at a school for first, second and third grade students.

Even more positives on the hire came during the interview process, according to Russell.

“Everybody commented on how well she communicated not only with her students and their parents but with her teachers,” he said. “I think she’s going to bring that to the table.”

The board’s vote now sets up a replacement for Kennedy, who will soon step down as Jackson’s principal after serving in that role for the past seven years.

In all, Kennedy has been a teacher or administrator at Jackson for 24 years with a grand total of 27 years of overall experience in education.