Michelle King, assistant principal of Mt. Hope High School since the 2016/17 school year, was named the school’s interim principal on Monday.

“I am excited and humbled to accept the appointment of Interim Principal at Mt. Hope High School,” wrote King within the announcement, sent by Superintendent Ana Riley on Monday. “I have been a part of the Bristol Warren community for the last six years and am committed to continuing our collective work toward rigorous and attainable standards for our students. As interim principal I will continue to build upon our focus of improved teaching and learning, school culture, and accountability. I firmly believe that together we will succeed.”

The move comes following the unexpected departure of Dr. Deb DiBiase after six years as principal and two years as assistant principal. DiBiase accepted a position within the district as the Director of Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) after it was learned her contract was not going to be supported for renewal by a majority of the Bristol Warren Regional School Committee.

DiBiase had all good things to say about King being appointed as her replacement.

“I am very happy for Michelle King as she takes on her new role as Interim Principal,” DiBiase said. “She has a great deal of knowledge and experience as an administrator at Mt. Hope. She knows the staff and students, as well as the many facets involved in leading a high school. I am confident that her leadership will continue to nurture the great things that we have accomplished at Mt. Hope.”

As for her priorities, King said that continuing to raise the standards for both kids and adults in the school was essential, as was utilizing resources to ensure students have adequate supports.

“We’ve started the work on that, so continuing to increase our standards and expectations for students, but also really digging into accessing our behavioral health and mental health supports and making sure we’re really tiering our supports to all our kids and meeting them where they’re at,” she said.

King emphasized that teamwork and continuing to embrace a strong sense of school community was also important.

“We do this together, we’re raising accountability together. We’re a team,” she said. “It’s a common goal we’re working towards of giving our students the best possible education that they deserve.”

When asked about disciplinary issues at the school and whether or not it was indicative of some larger issue that needed to be addressed, King said that Covid has definitely been a factor in recent student behavior, but that driving home a message of high standards of conduct was an important part of addressing the issue.

“What we’re seeing is not atypical. I don’t perceive it in the way that maybe some within the community do. Certainly I wouldn’t say it was out of control,” she said. “The work we need to do is really provide clear, direct consistent messaging regarding our high expectations for everyone — adults and children — we all have to be held to these high standards.”

King is a Woonsocket native and a resident of Cumberland. She was a physical therapist for 12 years before becoming a science teacher and eventual department head in Lincoln public schools, which she did for about 11 years. She then took the assistant principal job, working alongside DiBiase, in 2016 at Mt. Hope. She said that she looks up to Dr. DiBiase as a mentor and looks forward to continuing to work with her.

“She’s going to do great work and I look forward to building that system here at the high school, which we truly need,” she said.