Two alumni of the School of Education — Elena Ashburn and Erik Naglee — have been honored as 2021 Regional Principals of the Year, making them among the eight finalists for the North Carolina’s Principal of the Year award.
Elena Ashburn (’12 M.S.A., ’18 Ed.D.), who was named the North-Central Region Principal of the Year, has led Broughton Magnet High School in Raleigh since 2017. Prior to that she was principal of East Garner Middle School and an assistant principal at Fuquay-Varina High School.
Ashburn started her career with Teach For America, working as an English teacher at Southern Durham High School. She earned her Master of School Administration degree at the School of Education in 2012 and her doctorate of education degree in 2018.
In 2018 Ashburn was named the School of Education’s inaugural recipient of the Priddy Family Award.
Erik Naglee (’09 MSA), in his third year as principal at Page High School in Greensboro, was named the Piedmont-Triad Region’s Principal of the Year.
Naglee was named Guilford County’s Principal of the Year in October. He has been a finalist for that award twice before, once in 2017 while he worked as principal at Northwest Middle School in Greensboro, and in 2019 at Page High School.
The eight regional principals of the year go on to compete for North Carolina Principal of the Year, which will be named later this year.