McNair gets third new principal in two years
By Gregg MacDonald
Beginning July 1, McNair Elementary School will be getting its third new principal in two years.
Theresa West is taking over for McNair Principal Dr. Janet LeBel, who took over from Stephen Hockett in October 2007. LeBel, who came out of retirement to take over for Hockett, is now retiring again.
Hockett – who was picked with the hope he could raise the school's test scores in 2006, joined the U.S. Department of Education as an educational adviser in 2007.
McNair, which opened in 2001, is classified as a "Title I" school and is held to stricter requirements than some other schools under Federal No Child Left Behind guidelines.
Title I is the United States’ largest federal aid program for elementary, middle and high schools. Through Title I, the federal government gives money to school districts based on the number of students from low-income families.
Under No Child Left Behind, Title I schools are subject to sanctions that increase in number and severity with each year that the school does not meet federal testing benchmarks. The targets also generally increase with each school year. Last year, McNair, was in its fifth consecutive year of not meeting the benchmarks.
LeBel said then that a “high mobility rate” was part of the reason that McNair had failed to meet the ever-increasing federal benchmarks.
Incoming principal West says she is not intimidated by that.
“There is certainly a higher transiency rate at McNair than at some other schools, but I was principal at Glen Forest Elementary in Baileys Crossroads, which has an even higher rate than McNair,” she said.
West, a Falls Church resident who has been with Fairfax County Public Schools for 17 years, has been a cluster director in the FCPS central office and has taught Spanish immersion classes in the past.
“McNair has great diversity and great challenges,” she said. “I have already hired eight new teachers and am looking forward to building community, strengthening the current parent-teacher-student community here and working with teachers, creating teacher leadership and fostering an environment in which parents are welcome and active participants in the school, to build upon what has already been started here.”