Wildwood Middle, Shipley Elementary and Jefferson High schools get new administrators

Heather Boucher, Patricia Brockway, and Darrius Fenton hired to help lead schools

August 14, 2012|By RICHARD F. BELISLE | richardb@herald-mail.com

Boucher

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — Students at Wildwood Middle, Shipley Elementary and Jefferson High schools will find new administrators in their buildings when they return to class Tuesday for the 2012-13 school year.

Heather Boucher takes the reins at Shipley Elementary School on U.S. 340 East near Harpers Ferry, W.Va.

She replaces Mark Osbourn, who retired after his election in May to the Jefferson County Board of Education.

Patricia Brockway will be on board at Wildwood Middle School across from Jefferson High School on Flowing Springs Road. She succeeds the retiring Paul Brown in that school’s top administrative slot.

Darrius Fenton, most recently a collaborative team leader in the Fairfax County, Va., school district, was hired as an assistant principal at Jefferson High School.

Boucher began her career at Shipley Elementary in 2004 teaching kindergarten. In 2010, she began teaching fourth grade. Last year, she taught math and reading, and now she’s principal of the school she’s been working in for eight years.

She also taught seventh- and eighth-graders at Hedgesville Middle School in Berkeley County, W.Va.

Boucher said Shipley’s student enrollment is about 400 students in grades kindergarten through five. It has a teaching staff of about 45, she said.

She grew up in Iowa in a family of teachers, including her grandmothers and her parents. she said.

Boucher’s two children went to Shipley and now attend Jefferson High.

Her work commute is short.

“I can see the school from my front porch,” she said.

Brockway comes to Wildwood Middle from an assistant principal’s post at South Middle School in Martinsburg, W.Va.

Wildwood Middle opened in 2002 as a ninth-grade facility while Washington High School was being built to take the student overload from Jefferson High.

The building became Wildwood Middle when Washington High opened in 2008 and ninth-graders were moved back to Jefferson High.

Wildwood Middle has a student population of about 600, Brockway said. There are about 55 teachers and 10 support staffers.

She plans to focus her efforts on getting students to become excited about civics.

“We have to let them know what their country is about, to help them keep that part alive,” Brockway said.

Fenton’s move to Jefferson High is his first administrative job.

His duties include watching over mechanical, custodial and cafeteria functions, as well as the health, physical education and driver’s education departments.

Jefferson High’s other assistant principals are Jim Sites and Tony Roman. Howard Guth is the principal.
The school has about 1,350 students in grades nine to 12 and 120 teachers.

Fenton, who lives in Martinsburg, W.Va., also worked for four years in theWashington, D.C., school district.

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