By JOYANNA LOVE/ Senior Staff Writer

Carla White of Clanton Middle School and Ricky Porter of Isabella High School have been named Alabama District 3 Principals of the Year.
Each is now in the running for Alabama Principal of the Year.
The principals were nominated by Chilton County Schools Superintendent Tommy Glasscock and then voted on by all of their peer principals in the district.

White was selected by the middle school principals, and Porter was selected by the high school principals.
District winners were announced at the joint conference of Alabama Association of Middle School Principals and the Alabama Association of Secondary School Principals.
“It is a great honor,” White said. “I was shocked, but excited.”

White is in her second year as a principal at CMS.

“I enjoy just getting to know the students,” White said. “Being a part of their lives is really important.”

She said she loves working with the students and faculty at Clanton Middle School.

“I was very honored just to be nominated and very humbled and honored to win the Principal of the Year District 3,” Porter said.

Porter said the award was a “reflection of the great things going on at Isabella” more than personal accomplishments.

Porter has been the principal at IHS for the past 12 years.

He became a principal after serving as the assistant principal at Thorsby High School and 13 years as a classroom teacher in Chilton County schools.

“To me, (becoming a principal) was just a natural progression from a classroom to administration,” Porter said.

Glasscock described Porter as “rock solid. He’s consistent with what he does. He’s very approachable.” He also said Porter thinks things through before making decisions.

Porter said Isabella is “a wonderful place to work with great faculty and students” with good community involvement.

“What we want to do at Isabella is to instill those leadership skills in all our students … everyone has to be a leader sometime,” Porter said.
Prior to being the principal at CMS, White was the principal of Verbena High School.

“After being an assistant principal and learning the day-to-day, I thought I was ready for that next stage,” White said of wanting to become a principal.

She was assistant principal at CMS for two years, a teacher at CMS and was a teacher at Clanton Elementary for several years.

Glasscock said White treats her students as though they were her own children.

White and Porter have been interviewed by a state selection committee made up of retired principals and superintendents.

If one of them is named the Alabama Principal of the Year, he or she will receive a surprise visit from the committee with the news.