Middle School's loss.... District Services gain
Wayne County School District has a new needed position filled by a familiar face, former Wayne County Middle School Principal Melissa Gossage. Gossage has been named the Human Resources director and has hit the job running.
She will be supporting the staff by providing leadership for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining qualified and competent employees. It will be her responsibility to organize, plan and implement the human resources activities for the district. She will be involved in everything from the onboarding of new employees to the development of certified and classified evaluations to handling professional certification issues in accordance with Education Professional Standards Board (EPSB) guidelines.
Gossage started her local career in the classroom teaching Science for five years, before serving as assistant principal for three years and principal for nine years at Wayne County Middle School. She is a Wayne County High School 1996 graduate. She received her middle school teaching degree in Science and English from EKU, then a master’s degree in Education Leadership for Principalship from Union College, followed up with a Rank 1 certification for DPP at WKU.
Her duties cover a long list of expectations and she is already learning how to meet those goals through on-the-job training with the help of district employees, the EPSB and the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE). She is working with universities to help teachers seeking help with alternative pathways towards an instructional certification. Now days, there are many more applicants entering the teaching field through Option 6, who do not have a teaching degree, but a bachelor’s degree in another field and have expressed an interest in becoming an educator. They can enter into an agreement to work on a master’s degree in education, while they have been hired to teach in the classroom.
“One of the things I enjoyed the most at the middle school was the opportunity to help my staff and students. While the business part of being a principal gets stressful, the opportunity to help people is more my nature. Therefore, to be of service to all employees of Wayne County Schools will be an honor,” she said.
She explained that in her role as principal she always wanted her staff to come to her for support, even if it was about a difficult situation. “That way we could figure it out together. I have found by being empathetic to individuals regardless of where they are coming from, makes the next step more productive.”
Her mother (Vicky Winchester, who is a retired educator) always told her, “Kids are not going to care about what you know, unless they know you care,” noted Gossage. “Adults are the same way.”
Gossage is married to Shawn Gossage, who has helped coach the girls softball program for many years. She has two daughters: Ashtyn Bell is an interior decorator in Nashville and Anastyn Gossage is a sixth grader and will be playing on the girls’ basketball team at the middle school.
She indicated that WCMS will always hold a special place in her heart, along with the students and staff that have graced those hallways. “I just hope I can continue to be seen as a source of support for our district. I’m striving to build strong relationships throughout our district.”
“I’m hoping to be our employees very own ‘help desk’ person, so to speak,” concluded Gossage.
Original source can be found here.
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