LEE – Kathy McAvoy, principal of the three primary schools in SAD 30, stepped into her role as president-elect of the National Middle School Association last week at its annual conference in Atlanta.

A nonprofit organization based in Ohio, the NMSA is geared toward providing research information and other resources to anyone involved in the education and development of middle-level students.

Officials for NMSA, which has 31,000 members within the country and affiliates around the world, notified McAvoy that she had been elected to the position in June. She was sworn in Sunday, Nov. 9, at the Georgia World Congress Center. McAvoy will take over as president at the 2004 conference in Minneapolis.

McAvoy taught sixth-grade language arts for 13 years before becoming the principal of Mount Jefferson Junior High in Lee, Edith Lombard Elementary in Springfield and then Lee-Winn Elementary School in 1999. She co-founded the Maine Association for Middle Level Education and has co-directed the Middle Level Education Institute for 15 years.

While she was excited about being elected, McAvoy said it was even more exciting that the association chose someone from a small rural school in a state as small as Maine. McAvoy also pointed out that Maine has been very cognizant of appropriate curriculum for middle school students.

“Maine is well-recognized as being on the cutting edge of education as far as research is concerned,” McAvoy said Thursday.

The new role will require a good deal of advocacy for middle-level education and is likely to include trips to Washington and other conferences to speaking about pressing issues, she said.

“I will definitely be advocating for more attention to early adolescent literacy,” McAvoy said.

Bringing the community into the fold of education – such as when the Mount Jefferson Junior High brought in veterans to speak before Veterans Day – is also an important initiative McAvoy intends to support.

“Research shows that when you have the community and parents involved in education, students do better,” McAvoy said.