Former Latin teacher Kelly Arble’s thoughts on transition to new administrative position

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Dylan Stanford

By Dylan Stanford

After working towards this position for a few years and earning her Masters in Education Leadership at ODU, new assistant principal Kelly Arble successfully made the transition from an IB and AP Latin and Theory Of Knowledge teacher to the administration.

“It’s kind of unusual for a teacher to transition into administration and stay in the same school,” said Arble. She had applied to other assistant principal positions throughout the city; however, she has known that this position was open and talked with Principal Danny Little to advocate for her to stay.

She was hoping to be able to stay at Princess Anne because of her value of the relationships she has formed between the students and the teachers; she considers herself very lucky.

Although she got the position and is settling into the role of assistant principal very well, the transition for her was not always easy.

Transferring to administration left a hole in the PA Latin community that was not filled until late summer. “They make the [new teachers] transitions late summer, so we were really lucky to find Mr. [Brian] Hall when we did at the last minute,” said Arble about the new Latin teacher who has taken over for her.

Not only does she miss being able to see her students every day to read Latin and discuss TOK with them, Arble has to take on new responsibilities that differ from her life as a teacher: “When I was a teacher I knew what was going to happen every day,” she said. “There was a lot of structure and I knew what classes I was going to teach, when I was teaching them, what I was going to be teaching, which students I was going to be interacting with, what I was planning, and what I was going to plan. So everything was very predictable.”

With this new position, Arble says, “Everything is unpredictable and every day can look completely different than the one before it.”

But overall she could not be happier with her new role in the Princess Anne community.