Back to School: Urbana City Schools start new year with reworked principal staffing model

URBANA — Students in Urbana City Schools are back in class today and the district has reworked its principal staffing model for this new school year.

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Charles Thiel, Urbana School Superintendent, said this structure is what they designed their schools for.

News Center 7′s Taylor Robertson says they will have one principal with two assistant principals within the district.

Thiel told her last year they had two principals with one assistant principal.

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Urbana City Schools has two school buildings, a Pre-K through 8 building and 9th through 12th grade building.

Robertson says the principals will oversee students in both buildings, according to Thiel.

He said their focus is on the students’ behavior issues, attendance, and logistics that go with things like managing the buildings and staff evaluations.

“We were finally able to get the structure that we were kind of designed for,” he said. “And so, it’ll be interesting to see you know, how the two assistants play out that they’re brand new to administration.”

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Thiel said the two new assistants don’t have backgrounds in administration so it will be a new learning curve for them.

Robertson reports one of the assistants was a guidance counselor and the other a former teacher.

Thiel says one of the biggest changes for them is that they are now impacting a large group of kids as well as taking on administrative duties.

He added with a teaching background, they already know “the behind-the-scenes of running a classroom” and with a guidance counselor background, they know how to meet the needs of their students and their families.

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“I think that will be a good mix because as an administrator, you got to do a lot of counseling with both students and families,” Thiel told Robertson.

He said they spent all summer getting ready for this school year along with all of the other staff in Urbana.

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