Berkeley Leader

On Day One of her new job at Marrington Middle School of the Arts, Alison Thornley knew supporting the students was her first priority.

As the 2022-2023 school year approaches, her mindset remains the same.

“I will continue to make decisions based on what’s best for students,” she said. “ Sometimes that might make us work a little harder, or change our ideology, but in the end it’s what’s best for students.”

After serving in a high school assistant principal role for 15 years, Thornley took on a new leadership opportunity when she was named MMSOA’s new principal last summer.

Now that she is entering her second year as the principal, Thornley recently reflected on what she has learned so far about leading a middle school, what she hopes for in the upcoming school year, and what she loves about Marrington Middle School of the Arts.

“It is a sweet school,” she said. “I’m very, very thankful to be here, and I look forward to the new school year – it’s going to be super fun.”

Thornley studied education and sociology at Francis Marion College, where she also played volleyball. She has a Master’s Degree in secondary administration through The Citadel.

Thornley is a product of Berkeley County School District and attended Stratford High, where her dad taught drivers education at the time when she was a student. Thornley would later join her father on the Stratford High teaching staff when she started her career at the school in 1999 as a social studies teacher. She was later named an assistant principal in 2006.

In 2012 she moved on to be an assistant principal at Hanahan High, where she served as the administrator over the ninth-graders – a role that she believed helped prepare her to come to Marrington Middle School of the Arts.

“I certainly understand the culture and curriculum of high school – the academic rigor of high school,” she said. “I’m very aware of what it takes to prepare our students for this next step.”

Marrington Middle School of the Arts is different from any other middle school in the district in that it is a magnet school. Instruction is enhanced through arts-integrated lessons while still teaching state standards.

Since coming to an arts magnet school, Thornley said she has come to admire the teachers’ passion for fine arts, as well as their love for the students.

She further attributed the ongoing success of the students to having a lot of community support and parent involvement.

“You can tell the students have support from their parents,” she said. “The students take their education seriously, and that comes from home.”

Thornley is a parent to a rising sixth-grader herself, and has learned a lot about the middle school age group since coming to the school.

“What I’ve learned about middle schoolers is they want to do well, they want to do their best,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t know how to do that so we have to coach them on how to appropriately express themselves and how to advocate for themselves.”

Berkeley County School District schools all felt the impacts of the ongoing pandemic last school year. Marrington was able to start doing more performances in January, and the school came together for its annual spring production in April.

Thornley hopes for a more “normal” year this time around, with more performances and events for the school to host.

In the meantime, Thornley will continue to enjoy seeing the students grow academically and personally, and seeing them thrive in the arts.

“I’m looking forward to connecting with the students, staff and community, and hopefully COVID does not disrupt that,” she said.

Her advice to any rising first-year principal: “It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be rewarding.”

“The happy moments and seeing the students thrive is going to outweigh the difficult moments,” she said.

Original source can be found here.