JAY – The woman who led the Jay Elementary School for eight years and helped the town’s children improve their literacy and math skills is leaving as principal of the school at the end of the school year.

Principal Beverly Gillespie accomplished the goals she set for Jay and plans to look for new challenges.

School Committee members accepted Gillespie’s resignation Thursday night after Chairman Clint Brooks read her letter out loud.

Gillespie of Skowhegan came to the school in 1998, and set goals along with her staff to improve children’s literacy and math skills.

As a result of staff training and the implementation of what they learned, Gillespie wrote that the school has gone from being in the bottom third of the state for Maine Educational Assessment reading scores to the top 10 percent.

She also noted that the staff explored several standardized math programs and as a result, educators now use the Everyday Math program.

Through providing additional resources for students and staff, “our math scores have risen from the bottom 25 percent to the top third in the state.

“I fully expect Jay Elementary School’s performance in math to continue to improve,” Gillespie wrote.

Also under her leadership, a full-day kindergarten program and a pre-kindergarten program were also implemented.

“During my tenure I have had the good fortune to meet and work with some wonderful staff and students,” Gillespie wrote. “I am a person who looks for challenges and sets goals. The goals I have set for myself and Jay Elementary School are now complete and I am ready to seek other challenges elsewhere.”

Brooks said he remembered the interviews in 1998. “I knew from the outset what a good person we had,” Brooks said.

The committee also accepted the resignation of middle school secretary Ida Barker who has taken as job in SAD 52.