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'I bleed Tiger Blue and Gold;' Echols next W-WCHS leader
"I'm excited, and I appreciate the opportunity," Echols said, "I told the selection committee that I bleed Blue and Gold." "We have a really, really good school, with good teachers and good students," he said, "and I'd like to see us become a great school." The school's biggest challenge, he says, will be to continue to make Adequate Yearly Progress. "We can't just stay as good as we are and still make AYP, because those standards we're expected to meet go up each year. We're going to have to find ways to improve to make AYP." But making AYP isn't the end goal, Echols said. "We have to prepare our kids for the world after high school, to send them out into the world, to college, or the workforce with the tools they need to succeed." With the ever-raising bar of AYP, teachers and administrators are holding their students to high standards. "We expect teachers to keep standards high, and stick to them, and communicate that to students and parents," he said. "We have high expectations for their academic achievement, and we have high ex- pectations for their behavior and their attitude in school." Echols grew up in Wilkes County, and went through the Wilkes County school system from the first grade. His father, James E. Echols, was a member of the Wilkes County Board of Education, and his mother Rebecca was the first female school bus driver, and worked in the high school office and cafeteria. "I couldn't get away with anything in school," he said. He is the husband of Marie Echols, Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Wilkes County Board of Education. They have three children: Blain, 22, a student at Georgia Tech; Merritt, 20, a student at UGA; and Taylor, 18, a WWCHS senior who will attend UGA in the fall. As a Tiger, Echols lettered in football, baseball, and track, and was the honor graduate in 1974. He went to the University of Georgia and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education He later earned a Masters in Education at UGA in 1986. He was hired by Dr. Josh Scoggins in 1979, and did his student teaching under a young teacher by the name of Andrew Jackson. "We've been friends ever since," he said. He has taught in the Wilkes County for his entire adult life, with the exception of a few years in the 1980s, during which he returned to school for a postgraduate degree. He has taught math, science, and social studies in both the middle school and the high school. Through the years, Echols has coached the Tiger cross-country team, and earlier in his career, coached middle school basketball and baseball. In 2004, on the way home from a football game, Andrew Jackson suggested he apply for the assistant principal's job.
Jackson said he expected Echols to do well as principal. "The high school principal's job is the toughest in a school system, and you sure earn your money. One of the reasons I chose him as assistant principal is that I knew he held the line on discipline - he made them do right and do their work. He'll make a fine principal. He'll do very well."
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