Principal named at Havelock's Early College East

The new science, technology, engineering and math-focused high school scheduled to open in Havelock next fall now has a new principal and curriculum coordinator.

The Craven County Board of Education approved a recommendation at a meeting on Monday to name Allan Quinn as principal of the Early College Eastern Applied Science and Technology (EAST) High School.

Quinn, an assistant principal at Havelock High School, was the board’s selection to head up the new school last year. His appointment was delayed when the school’s opening was put on hold because of funding concerns.

When it opens next fall, Early College EAST will be the second early college program in the county that is designed to graduate its students with both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree or transferable college credits in five years.

Craven Early College High School is located at Craven Community College’s New Bern campus. Early College EAST, however, would be located near the college’s Havelock campus, where the college’s Institute of Aeronautical Technology is housed.

At Monday’s meeting, the Board of Education also approved Karyn Suggs as the new curriculum coordinator for Early College EAST.

Suggs is now a technology facilitator at Trent Park Elementary School. Her start date at Early College EAST has not yet been set.

Like Quinn, she was also selected about a year ago to work at the new school before it was put on hold.

“We needed them in those roles to do a lot of ground work, work on applications and things like that,” said Carr Ipock, chairman of the Board of Education. “It was with the understanding that if we had to delay a year, we should continue to work along that line, and would be looking to call them back into service.”

At the time that the project was delayed, the system’s $1.5 million grant from N.C. New Schools Project that was to be distributed over five years was not enough to launch the project.

But Craven County Schools was recently awarded an additional $200,000 grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation to renovate a building at Havelock Middle School. The building is now used to house fitness equipment, lockers and some classrooms.

In addition, the grant is also for technology needed for the new school, and for a staff person to provide engineering projects for the students.

“Now with this Golden Leaf grant, that put us in a position to move forward,” Ipock said.

The Board of Education also voted at Monday’s meeting to approve recommendations to appoint several assistant principals at Havelock High School since Quinn will be moving out of the role at the school, and another assistant principal is retiring.

The board approved the appointment of Kermit Snead, a career and technical education teacher in Wake County Public Schools, and Adam Olander, a math teacher at West Carteret High School, as assistant principals at Havelock High.