Two assistant principals named for Metea
The staff at Metea Valley High School is beginning to take shape with the appointment of two assistant principals who will help open the building in August 2009.
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 officials on Friday announced that Joy Ross and Edsel Clark will join the Metea staff July 1.
Ross is assistant principal at the district's Waubonsie Valley High School, where she oversees student discipline, special education and guidance.
Clark is math department chairman at Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream. He spent six years teaching math at Naperville North High School.
They will join principal Jim Schmid at the helm of Metea, which is scheduled to open next fall for freshmen and sophomores to ease overcrowding in the district covering portions of Naperville, Aurora, Plainfield and Bolingbrook.
A former Waubonsie principal, Schmid said Friday he expects to name roughly 90 faculty and staff members before winter break.
Ross served with Schmid at Waubonsie and said it's both exciting and humbling to work with him again to open what eventually will be a 3,000-student campus along Eola Road in Aurora.
"You can feel your mind working differently already," she said. "It's not an experience that many get and you have to realize how lucky you are to get the opportunity ... to get a chance to make a global impact. It's phenomenal."
Ross said details of her role still need to be ironed out, but she's ready.
"You work, you meet, you talk," she said. "You do whatever you need to do to make preparations."
Schmid said Ross has "significant background and understanding of the students, parents and community in District 204" as well as strong connections with the faculties at both Waubonsie and Neuqua Valley high schools.
Clark, meanwhile, has headed the Glenbard North math department since 2007 and specializes in modifying instructional practices to increase student achievement.
Schmid said Clark will bring a "unique perspective; an outsider's vantage point" to Metea along with a strong background in curriculum and instruction that will build on the desire for "continuous school improvement."
Clark said he views the chance to open a school "a great opportunity in my life and in my career."
Schmid said he will be in regular contact with his assistant principals as he puts together the rest of their staff, while still trying to be sensitive to the demands of their current jobs.
"It'll be busy but I'm very excited and that enthusiasm will help carry me through," Clark said.
Ross says she can hardly wait to get started.
"It's like the gift that keeps on giving," she said.