Board Approves School Leaders

LAKELAND | The Polk County School Board on Tuesday approved the appointment of two leaders for the Exceptional Student Education program, and principals for Lakeland High, Spook Hill Elementary and Spessard Holland Elementary schools.

Norma Hayes, 64, is the Learning Division's new director.

Hayes began her career with the Polk County School District as a speech teacher at North Lakeland Elementary School in 1981. She was a speech facilitator and teacher resource specialist trainer from 1982 to 2007.

Since July 2007, Hayes has been acting director of ESE. Her yearly salary will be $82,506.

Chandra Hall, 36, a former ESE teacher, will head the district's new consolidated school for ESE students.

In May, district officials said they were consolidating the ESE students with the most serious learning and medical disorders into one building in Lakeland. Hall will oversee 60 to 80 students during the first year the students are in the Dwight Smith Center on Mount Airy Avenue.

She began her career with Polk schools in 1994 as an ESE teacher at Boswell Elementary, and from 1995 to 1998 taught at Lake Region High. She worked as an ESE specialist for the Polk Detention Center and was an ESE teacher at Purcell Elementary. Hall was appointed assistant principal at Scott Lake Elementary in 2002, and since 2007 has served as a coordinator of Title I programs in the Learning Division.

Her yearly salary will be $75,379.

Tracy Collins, an assistant principal at Lakeland High School since 2003 has been named the school's new principal.

Collins, 38, replaces longtime Principal Mark Thomas, who announced earlier this year that he was leaving to become principal of Sleepy Hill Middle School.

Collins began her career with Polk County schools in 1996 as a science teacher at Lake Wales High School. From 1997 to 2003, she taught at Mulberry High School.

Her annual salary will be $90,879.

The new principal at Spook Hill Elementary School in Lake Wales is John Eric Edwards, now the director of High Point Christian Academy.

Edwards, 52, began his career with Polk County schools in 1981 and has taught at the Roosevelt Academy sixth-grade center, Hillcrest Elementary and McLaughlin Middle schools.

He was an assistant principal at Frostproof Elementary and Boone Middle schools from 1997 to 2001, and an elementary principal in Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands for three years.

Since 2006, he has been the director of High Point Christian Academy in Lake Wales.

He replaces Matt Burkett, who was appointed principal at McLaughlin Middle School.

Edwards' annual salary will be $75,379.

Melody Butler has been appointed as the principal of Spessard Holland Elementary School in Bartow, which is scheduled to open in August 2009.

Her appointment is effective Jan. 1, 2009.

Butler, 47, began her career with Polk schools in 1982 as a teacher at Boswell Elementary in Auburndale and in 2003 was appointed assistant principal at Carlton Palmore Elementary in Lakeland.

Her annual salary will be $75,379.