Education

East Middle School’s Site-Based Decision-Making Council has named Rebecca Martin as the school’s new principal.

The district made the announcement in a press release on Thursday.

Martin, an instructional coach with Shelby County Public Schools, has 20-years of experience in education, including being in Shelby County since 2002, when she started as a fourth-grade teacher at Painted Stone.

Kentucky is moving into a new standard of statewide testing this spring as part of the Common Core Standards that have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Kentucky was the first state to adopt the standards in Feb. 2010.

These new standards, the Kentucky Core Academic Standards, are more rigorous and better aligned with the skills needed in the modern workplace.

The English/language arts and mathematics standards were the first outlined and were taught this year.

Land acquisition and the Talented and Gifted programs will be the main topics when the Shelby County Board of Education meets Thursday at East Middle School at 7 p.m.

The board will recognize students that have met qualifications for the Duke University Talent Identification Program and hear a presentation from the Shelby County High School Talented and Gifted students.

The board will also take action on acquiring several parcels of land for the access road to Southside Elementary.

After honoring the 11 nominees for Shelby County's 2012 WHAS ExCel Teacher of the Year Thursday, the school district showed a short video with students from the winner's class stating why that teacher is at the top.

When the film began and Simpsonville fifth-grade teacher Sloane Barnett noticed it included students from her classroom, you could see the surprise on her face. And as it all started to wash over her, a little fist-pump and yes slipped out before she came forward to receive the bouquet of flowers and hear the applause from the crowd at Claudia Sanders.