LAUNCH PAIRINGS Twenty-five teachers and assistant principals accepted for the first class of LAUNCH, a principal preparation program, are on leave from their home schools to serve as apprentice principals this semester. Eight assistant principals in the program are serving as associate principals in high schools on probation. Participant Patricia Monroe-Taylor, an assistant principal at Howe Elementary, has been named interim principal at Clinton Elementary. Melverlene Parker, an assistant principal at Whitney Young High, is working at LAUNCH while awaiting an assignment. Deborah Edwards, an assistant principal at Piccolo Elementary, is on sick leave and will be assigned when she returns. …. Meanwhile, LAUNCH project director Albert Bertani has left the University of Chicago’s Center for School Improvement to become senior executive director of leadership development programs at the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association.
Here are the LAUNCH pairings.
AT CENTRAL OFFICE Mayor Richard M. Daley has named Maribeth Vander Weele, CPS’s chief of investigations, to replace Kenneth Holt as Inspector General, a post created by the Legislature when the Chicago School Finance Authority oversaw the board’s financial operations.
PRINCIPALS The following have been selected by local school councils to serve as interim principals: Noemi Esquivel, assistant principal at Sheridan, Addams; Tamara Witzl, head teacher at Telpochcalli, Telpochcalli; and Joseph Gartner, assistant principal at Byrd Community Academy, Byrd. … The chief executive officer selected Cynthia Barron, principal at Addams, to serve as interim principal at Jones Academic Magnet. … Interim principals who have received four-year contracts from their local school councils: Sharon Hayes, Parkside Community Academy; Pamela Strain, Ruggles; and Mamie Harris, Brown Community Academy. … Solomon Gibbs, principal at McNair Academic Center, has received another four-year contract.
NEW NAME The Philip H. Sheridan Specialty School has been renamed the Arnold Mireles Academy in honor of Arnold Mireles, a slain community leader who lived in the South Chicago neighborhood.