Thomas named new principal at Kingsview Middle School

Elizabeth Thomas a top choice of school community

In an interview after her appointment Tuesday, Thomas said she was ‘‘extremely excited, honored and very privileged to be leading the Kingsview community.”

Thomas came to Kingsview in 2000 as a student support specialist and was promoted to assistant principal in 2004, a position she held until 2007 when she was appointed a principal intern.

She said her priorities at the 900-student school will include encouraging all students to take rigorous courses ‘‘and making sure we are looking at individual students and tapping into their strengths and giving opportunities for them to show their learning in creative ways.”

At a meeting of parents last month after Queen’s appointment, several parents of Kingsview students told Laverne S. Kimball, the community superintendent who oversees several upcounty school clusters, that Thomas was their clear choice to replace the popular Queen.

Dena Nicholas, president of the Kingsview PTA, praised Thomas’ hiring.

‘‘I think it’s fantastic. I’ve been praying each night she would get it,” Nicholas said.

Nicholas was part of what she described as a 20-member panel of parents, teachers, school staff members and district employees who interviewed Thomas and four other candidates. Each member of the panel cast an anonymous ballot ranking the candidates in order of preference, Nicholas said. The votes were tallied and submitted to district administrators for consider in the hiring decision.

Nicholas said Thomas impressed the panel with her passion.

‘‘The thing that resonated the most with the panel is she talked about her instances of talking with children and in her mind she always thought about what the parents would like to see,” Nicholas said. ‘‘She kept an open mind, which, I think, really resonated with the panel.”

Before joining Kingsview, Thomas worked from 1995 to 20000 as a physical education teacher at Sligo Middle School. She graduated from Radford University in Virginia in 1994 with a bachelor’s degree in health and physical education and received a master’s degree in school administration from Johns Hopkins University in 2004.