TUPELO – Three new educational leaders were approved at Tupelo Public School District board meeting today.

Two of the three have years of experience within the district.

Superintendent Gearl Loden tapped Kim Britton, who has served as Pierce Street Elementary School principal for the past three years, to become an assistant superintendent. She succeeds Fred Hill, who has accepted a position as superintendent of the Natchez-Adams School District.

Britton has been an educator since 1995 and she came to Tupelo Public School District in 2004 as an assistant principal at Tupelo High School.

Kenneth Goralczyk will replace Britton as principal of Pierce Street, which serves students in third through fifth grade. Goralczyk, who lives in Tupelo, has served as the principal for Itawamba Attendance Center, a kindergarten thorugh eighth grade campus, for the past three years. He taught at Tupelo High School, Guntown Middle and Itawamba Community College before becoming a principal.

The Tupelo school board also approved Michael Johnson as the first principal for the High School Advancement Academy. Johnson has been an educator since 2001 as a high school math teacher and coach and has served as an administrator in Meridian, Jackson and South Delta school districts. Johnson holds a doctorate in educational leadership.

Johnson, who has served as the principal at South Delta Elementary since 2009, was name the 2010 Administration of the Year for the Mississippi Delta Region by America Reads Mississippi. The advancement academy is an extension of the high school that focuses on helping students who are more than two years behind earn a diploma or a GED.