U-46 fills principal slots

Elgin Area School District U-46 has gone outside the district to fill the principal vacancies at Hawk Hollow and Sycamore Trails elementary schools, both in Bartlett.

U-46 still has to fill five principal positions for the 2011-12 school year, including the heads of Elgin and Bartlett high schools.

Christine Zelaya will be Sycamore Trails’ new principal. She is now assistant principal at Rupley Elementary School in Elk Grove Village.

Zelaya, a former classroom teacher and technology coordinator in Chicago Public Schools, said becoming an elementary school principal is the next logical step for her.

“I really feel U-46 is a really progressive district,” Zelaya said. “I’m glad to be coming in on some of those initiatives.”

Zelaya said her experience in Chicago Public Schools should help her adjust to U-46, the state’s second-largest school district. School District 59, of which Rupley School is a part, has fewer than 7,000 students.

“It won’t be as much of a shock to go from a district of this size to U-46,” Zelaya said.

Hawk Hollow will get a new leader next year who is already serving as a principal at another school: Jessica McCormick of Amboy Central Elementary School in Amboy, Ill.

At Amboy, McCormick established behavioral and academic intervention programs and worked to increase parent involvement, according to U-46. She was a classroom teacher before becoming principal.

U-46 also has hired Reyna De La Mora to serve as the district’s new teacher leader for the Teacher Mentor Program starting in June. De La Mora has worked in U-46 since 2000, serving as a teacher in bilingual and traditional classrooms.

“Reyna not only is a strong advocate for children, teaching and learning, she has the unique ... background of having been a mentee during her first two years in the district, a one-on-one mentor and most recently a full-time mentor,” said Bill DuBois, the retiring teacher leader, in a statement.

U-46 is currently working to fill the rest of the principal vacancies in time for the start of the 2011-12 school year, district spokesman Tony Sanders said.