ELIZABETHTOWN — east Bladen High SChool has a new principal.

At the Bladen County Board of Education’s meeting obn Monday, board members approved the superintendent’s recommendation of Jason Wray as the new leader of East Bladen High School.

Wray comes to Bladen County School from Goldsboro High School in Wayne County, where he has served as the assistant principal of Goldsboro High School for the past two years. Goldsboro High School serves the youth population of 11 inner city housing authority districts.

Before his duties as the assistant principal, Wray was the Senior Army JROTC instructor at the school for seven years. He came to the education sector by way of the military where he served as a human resources technician for the Army for 22 years.

While in the Army, Wray traveled around the world, assigned to different duty stations such as Korea, Germany,; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Stewart, Ga.; Fort Jackson, Miss.; and most recently Fort Bragg in Fayetteville. His childhood home is in Portsmouth, Va., home of the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center.

“My goal as the instructional leader for students at East Bladen is to assist them in becoming successful, be it in college or post-secondary education, in their career, or in life, and that starts in the classroom,” said Wray. “My goal as the principal leader for the staff at East Bladen is to instill a common goal amongst all – to educate children.

“We all need to come together as a team through four guiding principles; Instruction, Learning, Attendance, and Data,” he added.

At Goldsboro High School, students are immersed in a one-to-one laptop learning environment. Each classroom teacher has a laptop cart in their room with laptops assigned to every student. East Bladen has a similar one-to-one program, but instead of classrooms using a laptop cart students are assigned a laptop to take home or use wherever digital learning is needed for the school year.

“My expectation at East Bladen is that teachers will use the laptops with students daily to enhance and bolster classroom instruction,” Wray said. “I want to ensure that students at East Bladen are surrounded with all available opportunities whether it is college connection programs, JROTC, or CTE. Students will be actively engaged in their own learning process.”

Wray will complete his educational leadership doctoral program from Aspen University on Aug. 18 by defending his dissertation titled, “A Case Study: The Role of Secondary School Assistant Principals in North Carolina.” He will be conferred in January 2016. He received his master’s in curriculum and technology instruction from Grand Canyon University.

Wray and his wife Jaqueline have been married for 26 years and have two children, Jason II and Jarin, and three grandchildren, Jason III, Jacqueline and Westin.

Valerie Newton is the public relations and information officer for Bladen County Schools.

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Valerie Newton

Bladen County Schools