District 300 names two new principals

The Community Unit District 300 school board recently appointed two new principals for Lincoln Prairie Elementary School in Lake in the Hills and Parkview Elementary School in Carpentersville.

Mark Wetzel, formerly an assistant principal at Hampshire Middle School, takes the helm at Lincoln Prairie, while Jorge Almodovar, the district's Title I facilitator, is the new principal at Parkview Elementary. Their yearly salary is $90,288 each.

Wetzel started with the district in 2004 as an eighth-grade literacy and social studies teacher at Westfield Community School. He also was a team leader, the middle school literacy leader and a member of the District 300 Social Studies Subject Area Committee.

In 2011, Wetzel became assistant principal at Westfield and served in that capacity until last June.

Wetzel directed the AVID Foundations for Accelerated Mathematics summer program for District 300 middle school AVID students, developed a districtwide set of guidelines for student placement in the areas of mathematics and literacy, and was an active member of the District 300 Middle School Scheduling Committee.

Almodovar taught elementary, middle and high school classes for three years at Caribbean School in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

In 2007, he and his wife moved to Illinois after he was recruited by District 300 to teach at Dundee-Crown High School as an English as a Second Language/bilingual biology and AVID teacher. He became dean of students in 2011, and was named the Title I facilitator in 2012.