The Hermleigh school district has a new principal.
During a special meeting Tuesday evening, Hermleigh ISD board members voted unanimously to hire Nathan Pettigrew for the position.
After the meeting, Pettigrew spoke about his background.
“I’ve been in education now for 20 years,” he said. “I actually started out as an educational aide.
“I went all the way up to biology teacher and an ag teacher. I spent the last several years at the Alternative Placement Center, working with at-risk kids.”
The Hermleigh position will be his first as a principal, though he worked as assistant principal at the Ector County Alternative Center for the past two years.
Pettigrew is working on his master’s degree in Life Science at University of Texas of the Permian Basin, and expects to complete the degree in 2021.
The new principal is looking forward to small-town living.
“When I was a child, I moved around a lot, so I connect with at-risk kids, but one of my memories as a child is a small town, and wanting to get back to it,” he said. “Now that I’m this far along in my career, I’m looking forward to being here with the students. With a small town, you’re going to have a lot more community support, a lot more parent involvement, and that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
Pettigrew’s first goal is to learn about Hermleigh.
“The first challenge is getting to know everybody,” he said. “Getting to know where the challenges are for this school, for the students, and making sure that any adjustments I make to start are minor at first so that they’ll be beneficial to the students but at the same time they’ll be easy to adjust to.”
In other business, the school board voted to hire pre-K teacher Tatum Mercer for the upcoming school year.