The Georgetown ISD board of trustees announced May 16 the hiring of two new principals, including the principal for the district’s fourth middle school.

The board unanimously approved hiring Lindsay Harris as the middle school No. 4 principal during its regular meeting May 16. Harris has spent the past five years as a principal at Jane Long Middle School in Bryan.

The district’s next middle school is part of a $160.6 million bond approved by voters in November. School administrators said the campus was designed to support innovative learning and include flexible learning space.

Suzanne Marchman,GISD executive director of community engagement and communications, said hiring Harris now would allow her more than a year to prepare for the opening of the school and hire staff for the campus. The school is expected to open for students in fall 2017.

Harris said she has family in the north Austin area, and said she could not pass up the opportunity to open a campus that would be rooted in innovative learning.

“I know the instruction means that all students will be challenged and pushed, and we’ll be supporting the students,” she said. “Doing that within the confines of the traditional classroom can absolutely be done, but it can be so much more powerful and impact every student when a building is designed with that in mind.”

The board also voted to fill the principal position at Ford Elementary School after Donna Wallace accepted a position in Bryan ISD. The board unanimously hired Jessica McMullen, who has served as the principal at Jan Schiff Elementary in Ford Bend ISD for the past two years.