Contributed
As the Moore County Board of Education moves forward on its planning for a new “innovative high school” at Sandhills Community College, it filled a key leadership post Monday night.
The board appointed longtime Pinehurst Elementary School Principal Ashlee Ciccone to fill the principal position at the proposed high school, effective Jan. 10.
Ciccone has 26 years of experience in education, including work as a middle school teacher, instructional coach, and assistant principal in North and South Carolina. She earned a Master of School Administration from North Carolina State University in 2004 and joined Moore County Schools in 2007 as the assistant principal of West Pine Middle School. In 2012, she was appointed curriculum specialist for advanced studies and social studies, and the following year, she became the principal at Pinehurst Elementary School, where she has served for the past 11 years.
Her accomplishments include:
* achieved expected or exceeded growth annually, as recognized by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, since 2013;
* named Moore County Schools principal of the year in 2017;
* led Pinehurst Elementary to be among the top 25 growth schools in North Carolina;
* received annual recognition as a North Carolina Purple Star School for military family support since 2017; and
* recognized for Distinguished Leadership in a Remote Learning Environment by the North Carolina Principals and Assistant Principals Association in 2021.
The school board is filling Ciccone’s vacancy by bringing back recently retired Moore County Schools Principal Jeni Wiley as the interim principal of Pinehurst Elementary School.
Wiley retired earlier this year after a 30-year career. She was named teacher of the year at New Century Middle School in her first year with Moore County Schools. Her administrative experience includes three years as principal of Elise Middle School and four years as principal of West Pine Middle School, where she was principal of the year for the 2021-2022 school year.
The school district last year received a $25 million appropriation from the General Assembly to begin the high school’s development on the SCC campus. Planning is underway, and the district has submitted its plan to the state for review.
Formally coined a “cooperative innovative high achool” and aimed at local workforce development, Moore County’s newest educational institution will be housed on the SCC campus off Airport Road and operated by Moore County Schools. The state is currently home to 134 such programs.
The schools are small public high schools typically housed on local college campuses. They are intended to expand opportunities for students’ success by implementing a small cohort model that includes significant staff support. State law dictates that each school can enroll no more than 100 students per grade level.
Moore County’s school will concentrate on vocational development to meet the expanding needs for skilled trade workers around the area. The new school will follow a model that shunts all students’ high school course requirements into their first two years before they follow a technical vocational track for the third, fourth and possibly fifth years.
