Principal named for new Thibodaux Middle School

West Thibodaux Middle School's principal will serve in the same role at the new Thibodaux Middle School.

Latainia Young's new position was announced Wednesday afternoon. Young was a teacher at West Thibodaux for 12 years and then served as an administrative assistant for four years. She then became Assistant Principal at Raceland Upper Elementary for four years and returned to West as principal just over two years ago.

"It feels good," she said. "It's like maybe I can go to sleep now."

Young said with the possibility of being selected for the position she's been thinking about what she would do if chosen constantly. She said she hasn't been taking the prospect lightly, and wants to hold after-school events each month to bring the two schools' communities together.

She said that when the two schools finally merge, she wants the historical rivalry to be a thing of the past.

"One thing we need to do first, because we are so divided, is we gotta work on pulling everybody together," she said. "So I want to get a centralized location and have some team building exercises and just letting everybody have some fun together and get to know each other."

Young has already chosen her Athletics Director, Joe Riley the athletics director at West. Young said she had already decided to choose him if she got the position because football practice begins before school. The Thibodaux Allstar Cheer Academy trains West's cheerleaders, so they will continue at the new school, she said.

"You know we are putting six or 700 middle school adolescents together from areas that are already struggling," she said. "So we are going to have to make sure we have all hands on deck, and the more resources we have to keep them involved and positive and motivated, the better off it's going to be."

Because teams can only field so many competitors at a time, to ensure the school has enough extracurricular activities to have options for all students, Young said she wants to have clubs. Some ideas she has so far are a newspaper club and drama club.

This will be the last school year for West and East Thibodaux Middle schools. The two will merge in August in a new building located between the two campuses, 724 Cardinal Drive. The candidates for principal were interviewed this week and the announcement was planned for next week, but Superintendent Jarod Martin said things were completed much faster than expected.

Martin said Young was chosen because she exhibited qualities teachers from both schools said they wanted based on polls they filled out. Asked to describe the biggest quality teachers were seeking, Martin said there wasn't a single quality.

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"I can't put a single sentence answer to that," he said. "It would be a person who has high expectations and yet compassionate of where people are. Being able to marry those high expectations with sympathy for people and where they are in life."

"I think that's what they are going to get from Ms. Young," he added.

This article originally appeared on Daily Comet: Principal for upcoming Thibodaux Middle School announced