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Lowndes County Public Schools have announced the hire of a new principal for The Calhoun School. Bryan Barlow works his last day at Stanhope Elmore High School on Friday and will begin his tenure in Lowndes County on July 1.

The new principal brings experience in teaching and school administration to the position. 

According to LCPS Superintendent Samita Jeter, he is an excellent fit for the school district and the school.

“He’s open to implementing new ideas that will assist teachers and students to make improvements,” Jeter said. “He has experience with strategies for improvement and he can speak to them from his experience.” 

The principal said he selected a career in education after growing up in a family of educators.

“You could say I was predisposed to be an educator,” Barlow said. “My family, they’re educators. My mom is retired from education and I have a multitude of uncles who were educators, coaches and principals.”

Starting out as a math teacher at Brewbaker Technical Magnet High School, Barlow transitioned into the administrative role of curriculum instructional assistant and helped “old-school” instructors move into more advanced classroom technology.

Later, as 10th-grade administrator at Stanhope Elmore, Barlow completed teacher report cards to help educators know where they are in relation to attendance and academic standards. The process Barlow helped to execute gives teachers the insight they need to ensure they reach established standards.

In last role at Stanhope, ninth-grade administrator, Barlow continued working to improve outcomes for more than 1,200 students. Prior to his transition to Stanhope Elmore, Barlow worked at his alma-mater, Jefferson Davis High School in Montgomery, where he oversaw response and intervention for students failing in the classroom.

As Calhoun’s principal, Barlow hopes to bring what he learned as an educator of educators to the Letohatchee school.

“I have what is called teacher expectations,” he said. “I call it the ABCs and one-two-threes of teaching. My philosophy focuses on three things: standard-based instruction, student support with standard classroom structure and implementing strategies and techniques when presenting the information to students.”

The simple approach is one Barlow said helps avoid initiative fatigue, where new strategies are started and stopped, over and over. A simple, intentional approach will help students and faculty reach goals for better overall outcomes.

“We are looking forward to implementing a few of these [techniques] so that we can get some different results at Calhoun,” Jeter said. “We want to get our teachers more training on preparing students for the ACT. We want to ensure we are not just teaching some standards, but getting the students to master the standards tested on the ACT.”