Mills named principal at West Elementary

RUSSELLVILLE — Gayla Mills is beginning her 31st year in education and her first as West Elementary’s principal.

Mills taught third grade when that grade was still housed at WES; spent about 24 years teaching second grade; and later worked in intervention with at-risk students and in-school suspension.

Last year, she became assistant principal before succeeding Alicia Stanford, who accepted a position with Decatur City Schools.

“All my past 30 years have been here,” Mills said. “I’ve done everything. I’ve been here at West in this one building.”

Mills said she grew up around Russellville City Schools because her mother, the late Nancy Hamilton, worked as custodian of funds for the school system.

Mills said her children, Tiffany Garrison and J.T. Watkins, attended Russellville City Schools. Her granddaughters, Dakota and Destiny Garrison, are students in the system with Destiny beginning second grade at WES this fall.

“I’ve always loved teaching children,” Mills said.

She earned her instructional leadership degree while teaching second grade and completed her administrative internship under city schools Superintendent Dr. Tim Guinn when he was principal at Russellville High School. She said Guinn taught her practical lessons about interacting with people and handling different situations.

“I still remember and try to put into practice things that he showed me along the way,” Mills said.

During her year as assistant principal, Mills said she worked closely with Stanford and shared administrative duties with her.

“She loved and cared about the kids and academics, and she was a great mentor,” she said.

Mills said becoming principal was something she had worked toward for years.

“I was very excited,” she said. “This is what I went to get my instructional leadership degree to do.”

Although her responsibilities have changed, Mills said she still wants to spend most of her time where students and teachers are. Each school day begins with administrators greeting students as they arrive.

“Most of the time, we’re not in the office,” Mills said. “It’s about being out, being seen and being in classrooms.”

She said she also enjoys watching students work together in the classroom, using hands-on materials and explaining how they reached an answer.

“They’re learning from each other and teaching each other,” Mills said.

Supporting teachers, she said, is another priority.

Mills said administrators plan to visit classrooms often, listen to teachers’ concerns and provide training, resources and help solve problems.

Mills said WES will continue emphasizing reading, language arts and math while working to improve last year’s progress. Safety and meeting the needs of individual students will also remain priorities.

“We want this to be our best year yet,” Mills said.

As she begins her first year as principal, she said she hopes students will remember that she took time to get to know them.

“I want them to remember that I took the time to say hello to them or talk to them, and I tried to know something about them,” she said. “I want to learn from them as much as they learn from us.”