DAPHNE—Some major changes took place in the Baldwin County school system last month, and two people with Daphne ties already have plans for their new posts.

Executive principal

Baldwin County School Superintendent Dr. Alan Lee promoted former Daphne High principal Don Blanchard to executive principal of all Baldwin County public high schools.

“The role (of the position) is to bring continuity to all schools across the county. It needs to be someone who has considerable experience in leading schools,” Lee said. “Don Blanchard has a wealth of experience and knowledge in running a high school. Daphne High School is an outstanding school. We had a lot of great candidates, but in this case I felt Mr. Blanchard was my best choice.”

Blanchard said his principal’s experience will give him an edge in the new position.

“Serving as a principal you understand the issues that are specific to the high schools,” Blanchard said, citing “seat hours” and “the graduation exit exam” as examples. “The first thing we hope to do is facilitate cooperation between all our high schools. There are great things going on at all of our campuses.”

Promoting from within

Meredith Horton — Daphne High’s former assistant principal — replaces Blanchard as the new DHS Principal.

“We’re building off of what we already started,” Horton said of her plans. “We want to instill in our students entrepreneurship. The way to get there is through teacher leadership.

“We have this new program called ‘Parthenon Time.’ Every day the students have a period in between first and second block where we’re doing remediation for kids who haven’t passed the reading or math of the exit exams and tutoring for kids who have a 68 or below in core subjects. And everyone else gets to choose between all these cool subjects that teachers are offering.”

Some examples of classes offered include hunting and fishing, game and video, abdominal workouts, pilates and yoga and science-fiction novels.

Horton also said the school plans to go wireless, and it will use a considerable amount of grant money toward the technology upgrade.

New positions

Blanchard’s new position comes from the previously titled assistant superintendent position. JaNay Dawson previously held the position but retired at the end of July.

Lee created three positions in the change: Blanchard’s post; the Baldwin County public middle schools executive principal, Branton Bailey; and the Baldwin County public elementary schools executive principal, Suellen Brazil.

The school board proposed the concept of the three new positions when Lee joined the county school system in July. Lee came aboard July 1.

“There was no additional cost to the system because the superintendent retired and there were other retirements,” said Terry Wilhite, communications director for the Baldwin County school system. “The reorganization plan created those three positions to create more consistency among schools in the county.”