Marietta City School District has had an influx of new administrators join the district this summer, including two new elementary principals, two assistant elementary principals and 2 new administrators at Marietta High School.
Melissa Emerson will be taking over as the new Principal of Washington Elementary. Emerson comes to our district after most recently serving as the Principal of Wirt County Primary Center in Wirt County School District. Before that she spent time as the Assistant Principal at Wirt County, as an Associate Principal of Curriculum and Instruction at Jackson County Schools and as both a pre-school and elementary school teacher at Ewing and Pleasants County Schools.
In her prior position Emerson helped guide Wirt County through a curriculum implementation similar to what our current district is going through. Tim Fleming, Curriculum and Technology Director for Marietta City Schools, believes that Emerson’s past experience will be invaluable during this process. “Over the last few years, our district has evolved a lot, both physical in our building structure and extensive academic structure changes. Everything we have been pushing towards, higher expectations, curriculum implementation, growth mindset, PBIS, Melissa has done at a high level in another district.”
For Phillips Elementary, they will be having a familiar face take over their building. Kristi Lantz returns after a stint as the principal several years ago. Since that time Lantz has been the Assistant Principal at Marietta Elementary School, where her friendly and upbeat personality was popular among staff and students. Her leadership and experience has been a consistent positive for the district both in our administrative meetings and at MES. The Phillips community is fortunate to have such a dedicated leader taking the reins of their building!
With Mrs. Lantz leaving MES, there was a big hole to be filled in the administrative team and Chery Huebner will be stepping in to fill that role as the new assistant principal. Huebner comes to Marietta City School District with an extensive background in teaching across multiple grade levels and states. Huebner also brings a substantial amount of special education experience and knowledge, which is only going to help us improve that area for our students. Huebner is especially excited to start this opportunity with Marietta City School District and expects it to be a great year. “I am thrilled to move into a leadership role and collaborate with the fabulous teachers, staff, parents and students at Marietta Elementary School. I can’t wait to meet all of our students and welcome them to a wonderful school year!”
Perhaps the largest change for this upcoming school year will be at Marietta High School. The High School will be welcoming two new assistant principals and an interim principal. Shannon McGowan will be joining our staff as Assistant Principal at MHS. McGowan was most recently the Director of the Swiss Hills Career Center. Prior to that position she served as the Assistant Dean of Instruction at Great Oaks Career Campuses, the Assistant Director of Special Education at Southern Ohio Educational Service Center and also has spent time as an intervention specialist across multiple schools. McGowan’s extensive leadership background is going to be a tremendous asset for our 7-12 graders as well as the staff she will be working with at MHS.
For the 24-25 school year the Principal of Marietta High School will be Bob Caldwell in an interim role. Mr. Caldwell’s experience will be invaluable during this transition year according to Superintendent Silvus. “Mr. Caldwell brings a great background in school leadership to us. He has worked at multiple administrative positions including building principal and superintendent. With nearly two decades as superintendent at Wolf Creek, his background will be an asset to the students, staff and parents of Marietta High School.”