The Dist. 129 School Board on June 19 filled
principal vacancies at Herget and Jefferson middle schools and also
selected two assistant principals.
Patricia Cross was appointed
principal of Jefferson Middle School. For the past six
years, Cross has been a principal at Goodwin School in the
Cicero School District. She has a bachelor’s degree in
Education from Northern Illinois University and a master’s
in Education Administration and Supervision from Loyola
University.
While at Goodwin, an 850-student
kindergarten-through-sixth-grade school, Cross developed an
improvement plan which resulted in the non-achieving school
making annual yearly progress and being taken off state and
federal watch lists.
Scott Woods is the new
principal of Herget Middle School. Woods was Herget’s
assistant principal last year, the school’s first. Prior
to that, he served as an assistant principal of Jewel
Middle School. He also taught Spanish at Jewel from
1999-2001.
Woods has a bachelor’s degree in Social Studies
Education and a master’s in Educational Organization and
Leadership from the University of Illinois and a
master’s in Cultural Studies from the University of
Birmingham in England.
Woods helped open Herget, which serves 650 students. He
also assisted in hiring all of the initial staff members
and was responsible for staff development, facilities
use, master schedule, standardized testing, student
activities and student services.
Matthew Castle will fill a vacant assistant principal position at
West Aurora High School. Last year he was a dean at the high school.
In the previous three years, he was assistant principal of a junior
high school in Western Springs. Castle has a bachelor’s degree in
Physical Education from Monmouth College and a master’s in
Educational Leadership from National Louis University.
Brett Burton has been hired to be an assistant principal at
Jefferson Middle School. Burton has been athletic director at Oswego
East High School for the past three years. In the previous two years
he was an assistant principal at Thompson Junior High School in
Oswego. Burton has a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and a
master’s in Teaching with Certification from Aurora University and a
master’s in Education from Northern Illinois University. Burton
attended Jefferson Middle School as a student and is a West Aurora
High School graduate.
