Julia Aron, the new principal at Bruce Upper Elementary (BUES), has a unique familiarity with the school.
“I started first grade in this building. My very first job ever in education was here, and now I’m back in this building,” she said.
Aron, who has taught school for 27 years, acknowledged the move to administration is coming later in her career than most, but she’s no stranger to leadership, especially at BUES. She served the school as “Master 
Teacher” from 2010-2015 as part of a federal grant program.
“Six years ago I thought I would be a third grade teacher forever,” she said. “When I got the Master Teacher position, it just opened a whole new outlook on education, and I saw that I did like leading, learning more, working with the data, and just trying to grow the school.”
She worked with principals Paula Monaghan and Dallas Gore through that time period.
“I feel like this school really began to change when it became part of that grant,” Aron said. “We had steady growth through the whole five years of that grant, and that was a time when we had three different state tests. I was very proud of that and felt like I was a part of it, because I was the only thing that was consistent through that time with the principals changing.”
“We really got academic minded when we went through that process. There was so much training we were all exposed to.”
You could say Aron has been training for this post all her life. Her mother, Annice Jenkins, was an English teacher who also led the special education programs in the district for years.
“I lived in education growing up,” she said.
A “service-oriented person,” Aron believes she has “a lot of education” still left in her and sees opportunities to make a big impact at BUES.
“I feel like I know the culture here and I want to grow the school even more,” she said. “I feel like we’re on the verge of getting in a good place academically. We’re on a steady incline, but still not to the letter grade we want to be.”
Among the top priorities for Aron this coming school year are improving attendance and increasing parental involvement.
“I’ve been over the Teacher Support Team and running the reports last year, I noticed that attendance is a big issue overall,” she said. “Some of it is not necessarily the absences all day, but the check-ins and check-outs. I want to get some incentives in place to reward attendance and work on some programs to improve that.”
“I also want to revive our parental involvement. It’s been a little on the down side for a while. I want to get our parents and the community back in the school a lot. I want our kids to see the importance of the occupations that are around here. I believe that’s important for them.”
Aron oversees 17 certified teachers at BUES, which she knows well after years of working with them.
“I’m very familiar with our staff,” she said. “I think that’s an asset.”
In fact, she has three former students (Jessica Hardin, Sandee Harris Brownlee and Brittany Venson Wofford) working for her.
“I’m looking forward to working with the staff, finding the resources they need to be successful and just supporting them,” Aron said. “Mostly, I’m ready to see the kids again and see the school functioning.”