By Joseph Domelowicz Jr.
Winthrop Superintendent of Schools Steve Jenkins announced today that he has offered the position of Principal at the William Gorman-Fort Banks School to Melrose Title I Director Ilene Pearson and that Pearson had verbally agreed to accept the job.
“She’ll officially start on July 1, 2007, but she will come aboard for a few transition days, shadow (retiring Principal) Tom Holmen and get a feel for the school, the students and the teachers,” said Jenkins. “The plan is to conduct some type of meet the new principal event. but I’m not sure right now when that will be — wheter it will be in the spring or in the summer.”
Jenkins said that the decision to offer the job to Pearson was a difficult one, but pointed to site visits to Pearson’s school in Melrose as a determining factor in the decision.
“The site visit team was very impressed with their visit to the school, we got to meet with the mayor, the superintendent, other elementary principals, and past and current parents and teachers,” said Jenkins. “I wouldn’t say that we all agreed one hundred percent, but the majority feeling (of the site visit team) was that she was an excellent candidate.”
Pearson, is originally from South Florida, and graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in early childhood education and later attended Salem State College, where she earned her masters degree in early childhood education also.
She has lived and worked in Melrose for the last eight years, beginning as a Title I reading specialist, but over her eight years in Melrose she has been called upon to build and expand the reading program and now oversees an early childhood center that is housed within the old Ripley School in Melrose and serves more than 130 students.
Jenkins also noted that Pearson’s experience and education in Early Childhood Education was another strong motivating factor in hiring her.
Pearson could sign a contract with the school district as early as this week.
Jenkins will make the official announcement of the hiring at Thursday’s School Committee meeting.