Elmore County Schools superintendent Richard Dennis introduced Gigi Hankins as the new principal of Wetumpka Elementary School at the Elmore County Board of Education meeting Monday.
A native of Wetumpka, she has 24 years of service in Elmore County Schools with 23 years in the city of Wetumpka.
“First I worked at Wetumpka intermediate,” she said. “The last 12 years I have worked at Wetumpka Elementary. In all, I have taught for 16 to 17 years, then I became an instructional coach, an assistant principal and now principal.”
Hankins said effective communication is key when taking a school leadership role during a pandemic.
“That’s been an incredible thing to think about,” she said. “Right now, while we are all isolated and doing virtual learning is a huge challenge to gather everybody under the umbrella and continue on like we are living in the normal world right now because we are not.”
She said current crowd size restrictions really makes communicating clearly a challenge.
“Right now, on campus, we have a very small capacity of people we are bringing in so constant communication and making sure I am taking care of my teachers and staff and students and families checking in,” she said. “They are stressed and this is something nobody ever thought we’d live through.”
Hankins said teachers will be better prepared for virtual learning if the school system has to deliver education in that manner sometime in the future.
“My teachers were already including technology and Google Classroom in the school,” she said. “Technology wise, we were really prepared, but you’re never prepared to pass it off like that (in mid-March).
“I think a lot of my teachers have found they are really found they are strong teaching virtually and have found resources and ideas we can implement in their classrooms. We will have more tools in our toolbox next year to meet the students’ needs.”
Hankins said she has a lot of goals and projects for the coming school year.
“There are so many different things,” she said. “I think making sure we educate and prepare parents as well. One of the things we talked about was more parental involvement if we were to do this again so it would be seamless.Â
“Also, the state literacy act. It is scary we are missing the last weeks of the school year when we are looking at the academics of our kids. We are going to have to cover some ground we missed now when we start back in August and really make sure we are doing a thorough job of teaching.”
Hankins said she chose education because the community of Wetumpka invested in her as a child and student.
“I was very fortunate this community encouraged me,” she said. “I come from a musical background so I’ve always had the support of people in this community. When I graduated I knew I wanted to come back and invest back into the community and people here. I grew up doing dance and theater and music. It was a dream to come back and work with kids.”
Hankins was named principal of the school after Dr. Bonnie Sullivan was hired by the Alabama State Department of Education to work with the state’s pre-K program.
“I have the utmost respect for Dr. Sullivan,” Hankins said. “She mentored and gave me opportunities and experiences as an instructional coach and assistant principal under her that have prepared me.”
