Two elementary principals leaving this year

Two Amherst County Elementary School principals will step down at the end of the school year to pursue their consulting business.

Madison Heights Elementary School principal Darlene Mack and Central Elementary School principal Stefanie Prokity said they are following their dreams.

“I’ve always had a passion to operate my own company,” said Mack, who has been Madison Heights principal for the past six years. “I guess what really motivated me earlier this year is (that) my father passed away and he was entrepreneur and businessman. He said he wanted me to follow my dreams.”

Both women have chosen to resign to work fulltime on Successful Innovations Inc., their educational consulting firm that focuses on staff developmental and parental support.

They will be joined by Madison Heights Elementary reading coach Hilda Stevens, who is retiring after 35 years in education.

Successful Innovations was started two and half years ago when the women said they saw a need for lessons that could help parents.

“As educators, we saw a void in education in general for the resources for parents,” Mack said. “A lot of frustrated parents didn’t have the resources at home to work with their children. We knew in education there was gap in providing parents the resources they need.”

Stevens said she would often have parents come to her and ask how they could help their children and make them successful in school. To help parents, the company sells CDs and DVDs with lessons parents can do at home with their children without having to buy supplies. Mack said parents could use household items to work with and encourage their children.

The company also offers staff development. For example, they offer training on effective reading strategies and how to decrease the achievement gap.

Stevens said that after retirement, she plans to work with school systems that want teacher training to lead professional development.

“For me I am retiring from education and the time was right because I felt like I still wanted to be part of educating students and working with teachers. This was just the next step in completing a dream of becoming a teacher trainer,” she said.

Prokity, who has been principal at Central for four years, said people were surprised when they heard about her departure, but supportive. For her it’s just “the right time.”

“I think this has always been a dream of ours and the passion has become overwhelming at this point,” she said. “We see the need, there is a need out there to help parents out and help teachers out.”

Prokity said she wants the company to provide teachers and parents with the skills and training they might need.

“We specialize in bridging the gap between home and school,” she said, later adding, “It’s not that parents don’t want to help their children, it’s that they don’t know how.”