While students scrambled to finish their summer assignments and tried to enjoy the last days of vacation, new assistant principal Megan Wood was busy learning the ropes of a whole new school.

Wood replaced associate principal Raynell Stokes, who retired over the summer after 22 years at AHS and 37 total years in education.

This year will be Wood’s 14th year working in schools, as she previously taught social studies at both Jouett and Henley and served most recently as an instructional coach, a position that helps teachers to “implement new things in the classroom,” according to Wood.

With her background as both a teacher and an instructional coach, principal Jay Thomas and the interviewing committee thought Wood “brought a lot of wonderful things to the table.”

“What stood out to us from her was her instructional leadership,” Thomas said.

Wood knew she wanted to be an educator in high school, as a result of spending her summers as a camp counselor. She also “taught swim lessons, so I’ve always loved working with kids.”

Since she can’t imagine working without kids, Wood looks forward to getting to know the students here at AHS. “As an instructional coach you don’t really have a set of students or a class of students, you’re kind of in and out of the classroom,” Wood said. “So [this year] I’ll be able to develop some relationships and get back into really knowing the students, which is what I’m really excited about.”

Wood’s individual responsibilities as assistant principal this year include overseeing field trips, special education, yearbook, the new music studio, and volunteer coordination. As a whole, the administration will be working to tackle changes such as an unusually large student body and the newly implemented one-to-one student-to-ThinkPad ratio for the freshmen class.

“I think one-to-one will be exciting, but I think dealing with the logistics of one-to-one…will be challenging,” Wood said. “I think [one-to-one and increased enrollment] are probably the two biggest challenges.”

All in all, Wood is enthusiastic about the new school year. “As an instructional coach I was in three different buildings, so I’m looking forward to being part of one building, and being part of one community,” she said. “…I’m excited to be here.”

This article originally appeared on pg. 1 of the Aug. 20 issue.