JAY – A Farmington man, Chris Hollingsworth, who is the principal of Waterville Senior High School, will become Jay Elementary School principal on July 1.

Hollingsworth entered into a one year contract with the Jay School Department at a salary of $72,073 earlier in April, School Superintendent Robert Wall said Friday.

Hollingsworth was one of 12 candidates who submitted applications for the elementary school principal position and one of two finalists interviewed by a principal search committee and school officials, Wall said.

Principal Beverly Gillespie announced last year that she would be resigning from the position to pursue new challenges at the end of the 2006-07 school year.

“We feel that Christopher has all the characteristics we were looking for in a new principal,” Wall said. “Someone who has a background in elementary and someone who has the drive and focus that would result in us moving ahead with an excellent program we already have in place.”

Hollingsworth holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Maine at Farmington and in Orono respectively.

He decided to go back to being an elementary school administrator because of his background in elementary education and mostly because of his family, Hollingsworth said Sunday.

He and his wife, Jodi have four young children.

“I look forward to being a part of the Jay school system, a system which can be proud of what it is already doing to prepare its children for success after school. I look forward to being a part of that success,” Hollingsworth said.

“My vision is to collaborate, support, and facilitate an environment of unlimited potential for all those around me,” he said.

“Some of my strengths, which I feel will be useful to Jay are:

“• I believe in data-driven decision making.

“• I have a strong literacy background.

“• I have strength in developing and using assessments in meaningful ways to inform instruction.”

Hollingsworth has served as assistant principal at Sanford High School, Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro, and Warren Elementary School, and as a special education teacher and a sixth-grade teacher.

Among his achievements at the Waterville school are implementing school-wide literacy, which included professional development and the adoption of school-wide literacy strategies that can be used in all disciplines to help improve literacy in students, according to the school’s Web site.

He also implemented an aspirations program for students and faculty and promoted the use of differentiated instructions by teachers in their classrooms to meet the needs of students, his resume states.