The Edgecombe County Board of Education approved two new administrators at the special meeting held Jan. 31.

Stephanie Alston has been chosen to replace retiring principal at Stocks Elementary School, Russell Johnson and Raymond Privott to serve as interim principal and assistant principal at Tarboro High School.

Stephanie Alston, who is coming to the district from Pitt County Schools, will begin as principal at Stocks Elementary School March 1. Alston earned her master’s in school administration from East Carolina University in 2007, where she also earned her bachelor’s in elementary education in 2000. She has most recently been serving as the assistant principal at Sam D. Bundy School in Pitt County since 2010 after her tenure at joining school H.B. Sugg Elementary. Her other experience in education is in first and third grade where she taught for seven years, along with teaching basic GED skills at Pitt Community College. Alston was named teacher of the year for Lenoir County Schools in 2003 and Pitt County Schools in 2006, she was also nominated for assistant principal of the year twice with Pitt County.

Alston will replace Russell Johnson at Stocks, who has been there since 1997 when he became a teacher, and has been a principal there since 2006.

Raymond Privott assumed the role of interim principal at Tarboro High School on Feb. 1 and will remain in that position while the current principal, Dr. Lisa Cooke, is on medical leave. Privott will serve as assistant principal, along with current Assistant Principal Darryl Morris, upon Cooke’s return. Privott has served as an interim principal with Edgecombe County Public Schools before at SouthWest Edgecombe High School in January 2011 and stayed there in the interim through the school year. Privott, who in the past has been an assistant principal and principal at Princeville Elementary, W.A. Pattillo and C.B. Martin Middle was also last year’s recipient of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.