From Warrior To Golden Eagle – Melvin Lindsey Leaves PCHS To Take Over As Principal At Green Bank Elementary Middle School

Green Bank, WV – As I walked into Mr. Melvin Lindsey’s new office at Green Bank Elementary/Middle School, he was busy shuffling files, papers and publications around. It was obvious that he was still moving in but yet he seemed quite comfortable in his new role. I ask him about the transition from Dean of Students, Athletic Director and Coach at Pocahontas County High School to the new Principal of Green Bank Elementary/Middle School.

“It’s not been bad, it’s a great staff up here and they’ve welcomed me with open arms,” says Lindsey. “I knew I had a great staff coming in so it’s been an easy transition so far. I knew this was opened up for a while and it’s a lot of time being Athletic Director, coaching and other things; and I finished my degree in March and I felt it was time for a change and this would be a great school to learn at, and it’s where I plan on staying and retiring.”

In light of all the new technologies coming on line, I asked Mr. Lindsey where he thinks Green Bank stands.

“I’m not a techno guru as I told them when they hired me, but I’ve got good people up here, and we’ll get through the technology standards,” he says. We’re working on different things now. They’ve got the Elmo’s and the Mimeo’s and smart boards in all the rooms and projectors;, so I think we’ll be alright. We’re right where we need to be, we just don’t have wireless.”

I asked Mr. Lindsey if he intends to do some different things at the school.

“We’re coming up with some different ideas,” says Lindsey. “I’ve turned a few things over to the students, and they’re doing the morning announcements and I’m going to have the Language Arts department and the 8th grade, do the school news letter. I figure maybe the parents will read what I have in there if they know their kids are writing the articles. I think we’re going to start back creative writing in the 2nd grade working with the 8th graders. That was the teachers’ idea and I thought it was great.”

I asked him if he had anything else new that he was going to try.

“We’ve got a new program; we’re just waiting on some materials from the military’s going to help out, and it’s called Earning Their Wings,” he says. “We catch them doing something good, we’ve been handing out t-shirts and pencils. And we’re going to get wings and hand them to them; we’re telling them earning their wings’ meeting AYP by doing well on the Westest. The biggest thing is we want our children to buy into the program up here and enjoy the educational experience here at Green Bank.”

It seems like a lot is going on at Green Bank and I asked him what else is new and exciting.

“The science class, they’re doing a raising trout in the classroom,” he says, “and they’re getting ready to do that. We have the guy from the watershed project is coming up one day to talk to them about the watershed project. And they’re going to use the watershed project from Mountain Institute to decide which stream to release their trout in. And also we have a lady coming up I think that’s Monday, she’s doing Aerodynamics and Physics with the 6th, 7th and 8th graders.”

Mr. Lindsey shares a few final thought that parents should be interested in.

“We’re also doing Ed-Line for new students, and 1st graders can come up at night, Ms. Bland is doing Ed-line training to get their passwords,” he says. “We got a lot of nice stuff coming up. September 16th is our first 8th grade dance and we’ll find out how it goes and we’re going to try to do one of those a month.”

Melvin Lindsey is at Green Bank for the long term and he wants to encourage parents to take an active role in their children’s education.