Fort Smith School District announces new principals, assistant principals

FORT SMITH -- Almost a dozen School District employees will start the 2021-22 academic year in new leadership positions.

The district announced Friday it appointed existing faculty to fill 10 vacant principal and assistant principal jobs. This includes Elizabeth Love as principal of Spradling Elementary School and Matthew Hominick as director of Belle Point Center, an alternative learning school.

Christina Williams, a district spokeswoman, said Love replaced Robyn Dawson while Hominick replaced Tony Jones, whom the district appointed as its new director of secondary education earlier this month.

Love has been assistant principal of Morrison and Trusty elementary schools since 2019, according to a district news release. Love has also served as Title 1 elementary specialist and a first- through fourth-grade teacher at Spradling Elementary.

"I am very excited about the opportunity to return to the place where I started my career to serve the students, teachers and families in this new role," Love said.

Hominick, a Marine Corps veteran, has been an English teacher at Southside High School since 2013. His career also includes time spent as a high school English teacher in Hartford and Pine Bluff.

"I am excited to begin this new chapter in my career and look forward to working with the faculty and staff of Belle Point to create a nurturing environment in which every student succeeds," Hominick said.

The School District made appointments for assistant principal positions at the following elementary and high schools:

• Cook Elementary School: Cedra Flake, a fifth-grade literacy teacher at Howard Elementary School since 2016, replaced Sarah Mayer.

• Southside High School: Rachael Foster, a seventh-grade teacher at Kimmons Middle School since 2019, will assume a new position. Williams said the district added another assistant principal position to both Northside and Southside high schools to ensure each grade level would have an assistant principal assigned to them for a total of four. This is part of the district's grade reconfiguration, which will see the high schools converted from grades 10-12 to grades 9-12 and the junior high schools for grades 7-9 converted to middle schools for grades 6-8, starting this school year.

Jeff Mosby, a technology integration specialist since 2009, will also serve as an assistant principal of Southside. He replaced Jeff Prewitt, who is now principal at the high school.

• Ballman and Bonneville elementary schools: Donna Jones, Title 1 elementary specialist at Euper Lane Elementary School since 2020, replaced Laura Gladden, who is now principal at Ballman.

• Fairview Elementary School: Jennifer Lyon, a library media specialist at Tilles Elementary School since 2010, replaced Ami Griggs, who is now principal at Fairview.

• Northside High School: Jason Meharg, assistant principal of Chaffin Middle School since 2019, replaced Jennifer Steele, who is now the district's assistant director of athletics and activities. Meghan Reinhart, an English teacher at Northside since 2012, will also serve as an assistant principal there, having replaced Brad Ray.

• Park Elementary School: Amanda Ming, an elementary school counselor at Cook Elementary School since 2020, replaced Brooke West.