Rockmart High principal moving to Eastside
The search will be on for a new principal at Rockmart High School as the news came out late last week as the year came to an end in the classrooms that Wesley Cupp will soon be filling the role of principal at Eastside Elementary School.
Phil Wood has resigned from the Polk School District as principal of the Prospect Road School, according to interim Superintendent Greg Teems.
He said he didn’t have information about where Wood’s next posting would be.
The decision was announced during faculty meetings at both Rockmart High School and Eastside Elementary.
Teems said a search will begin for a replacement principal at Rockmart High School and no decision has yet been made on a hire.
“We’ve not yet decided on whether we’ll pursue promoting staff internally or whether we’ll seek someone from the outside,” Teems said.
Cupp said though he was sad to be leaving Rockmart High School, he looked forward to the opportunity to continue working with students.
“The way I understood it was that he and the board wanted to move things in a different direction, and they felt I would be a better fit at Eastside,” he said. “Most people know in any kind of leadership, you have to give someone three years to get a program going. I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see my program through, but I’m looking forward to the new challenge, and the opportunity to do show what I can do.”
Teems said the board made the decision to move Cupp to Eastside’s open principal spot because it was felt that he was a better fit in the position than at Rockmart High School. It will not have to vote on Cupp’s transfer to the new position, according to Teems.
Cupp was transferred previously from Northside Elementary School where he had been principal following Spring Break in April 2015 after DeAnna Williams resigned from the principal’s post.
He grew up in Cedartown and graduated from Cedartown High with the Class of 1994. Following four years at Berry College in Rome, he moved to Agawam, Mass., and worked for a year as a health teacher in an elementary school. Following that, Cupp spent two years in Bentonville, Ark., as a physical education teacher for kindergarten through fifth graders.
He’s spent most of his career working for Cartersville City Schools, where he taught both the high school and primary school level, served as a baseball, basketball and softball coach and was named Teacher of the Year for Cartersville Primary in 2007.
Wood did not return an attempt to contact him after news broke about the move on May 18.