On October 11, 2022, during a surprise announcement, Mrs. Ashley Faulkenberry, Principal of Trent Park Elementary, was named the 2022-2023 Principal of the Year (POY) for Craven County Schools. In her role as Principal of the Year, she will serve as the local advisor to the Board of Education and will represent Craven County Schools in local, regional, and state events. Mrs. Faulkenberry was one of five finalists that interviewed with a local selection committee on October 4th. Faulkenberry’s selection qualifies her to compete with other local award recipients for the Southeast Regional Principal of the Year title.
Mrs. Faulkenberry discussed her shared vision of being a community of innovative learners and leaders at Trent Park Elementary School. In her portfolio, Mrs. Faulkenberry believes that instructional leadership is the most important part of what administrators do each day. As the instructional leader, she has worked to embed a systems approach to continuous improvement throughout the building and in the everyday workings at her school. In addition, she models high expectations and provides quality professional development in efforts to create teacher leaders.
In her interview, she stated one of the hardest parts of the job is attracting, supporting, and retaining a professional, diverse, and agile team of educators. Trent Park has one of the lowest teacher turnover rates in the district. She shared how her team, “sells our story and creates a listening system to make everyone feel appreciated and welcomed.” In addition, there are multiple opportunities for teachers to provide input which has been a best practice in showing their voice matters.
In her portfolio, Mrs. Faulkenberry shared, “One of my biggest accomplishments as a leader, was being selected for the True School Fellowship for Education Innovation. This project is funded by W.K. Kellogg Foundation which provided Trent Park with a $15,000 scholarship to help our school develop leaders as a designer of transformational 21st Century Learning. One of the goals of the project is to engage our parent stakeholder groups more by sharing instructional best practices, so we designed a parent academy.” Parents will have access to instructional resources at home to support their child’s learning.
We would like to congratulate Mrs. Ashley Faulkenberry for this very deserving recognition. Craven County Schools is very proud of you and all you have accomplished as you support Trent Park Elementary in reaching great success. Continue to let your passion drive your work in establishing an environment conducive to the pursuit of academic excellence.
By Jennifer Wagner