By Gloria Rodriguez
Staff Writer
A new school year arrives full of new students, new teachers and new rules. This school year, there is also a new assistant principal, Mark Gould.
This is Gould’s second year as an assistant principal. Last year, he was an assistant principal intern at Williams High School in Burlington, and before that he taught fourth grade and elementary school for six years.
“It is a big change from elementary school to high school,” said Gould. “The biggest difference is the amount of freedom.”
Gould heard about Northwood from teachers at Williams High School, but had been looking at openings in many surrounding counties. During his interview, at least 10 people interviewed him and the other candidates.
“Gould stood out because we were looking for a total package in an assistant principal, and primarily somebody with good technology skills, somebody that is a people person, somebody that has a strong sense of this is the right way and the wrong way to do things in the school and someone with a strong academic background…. He was all those things,” said Principal Chris Blice.
Gould works with ninth and 11th grade discipline, the mentor program and the buses. Gould also has other responsibilities such as supervising teachers and students, benchmarks, textbooks and teacher evaluations.
“He definitely jumped in and started out running and needs very little supervision,” said Melanie Williams, the school’s other assistant principal.
Gould described his experience at Northwood so far as “great,” even though he had to learn pretty quickly how things operate.
“Mr. Blice and Ms. Williams are doing a great job, and I am glad to be a part of it,” Gould said.
Something that stuck out to him about Northwood is that he hasn’t heard negative remarks about the school from students.
“Teachers, the administration and students all seem positive about being here,” Gould said.
Gould has a lot of expectations for Northwood.
“I expect teachers to recognize that they are professionals, that they have an extremely important job of educating students, and to treat it that way,” he said. “In terms of students, I expect them to do what they need to do in order to achieve the goal that they want to graduate high school.”