Principals leave posts; most are retiring

Seven Columbia County schools will have new principals next year.

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Among the list, some of the names and faces will be recognizable to pupils when they return to school in August.

Lisa Reeder, the South Columbia Elementary School assistant principal, will take over the top spot at the school when principal Susan Gilbert retires this year after 31 years of service.

Another assistant principal, Jeff Collman, also will occupy a new office at the same school. Collman will take the reigns at Blue Ridge Elementary from principal Joyce Long, who is retiring with 33 years of service.

Sharon Carson, Riverside Middle's assistant principal, will be the new principal at Greenbrier Middle School, which is losing principal Jackie Creasy to retirement after 31 years of experience.

Carla Shelton, an assistant principal at Harlem High, will become the principal at Harlem Middle School. She is replacing Walker Davis, who is retiring after 32 years of service.

Riverside Elementary School is losing its two-year principal, Robbie Jarrell, to a promotion.

Jarrell will replace Sandra Carraway as the new assistant for student support. Carraway recently accepted a promotion to become the system's first deputy superintendent.

Charles Nagle, the associate superintendent of student support, said officials hope to recommend replacements for Jarrell and Sandra Black, who is retiring as River Ridge Elementary School's principal, at Tuesday's school board meeting.

Sarah Walls, the assistant principal at Lewiston Elementary School, will find herself in familiar circumstances when she becomes the first principal at Cedar Ridge Elementary School, which is opening in Grovetown in August.

"She helped open Lewiston Elementary and was very instrumental in the transition," Nagle said.

Connie Davis, the school system's human resources executive director, said the number of new principals for next year is not unusual for a school system the size of Columbia County's.

"A lot of our principals are in the baby boomer retiring stratosphere," she said.