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Westwood Middle School Assistant Principal Jim Dobson has been named the new interim principal of the school through the end of the academic year.

Dobson has officially taken over from former principal Jim Stone, who will remain in an administrative role with Manchester City Schools.

Director of Schools Joey Vaughn said he is confident Dobson will do well in his new position.

“We are excited for him, he has worked for the district for a while as assistant principal and athletic director as well as a teacher, and so he is ready to lead Westwood Middle,” Vaughn said.

Dobson, who was currently in his fourth year as assistant principal, said there are some notable differences between the roles of assistant principal and principal.

“The assistant principal, he is daily operations, he is your discipline guy,” Dobson said. “I also did attendance and just dealt with any fires that came up and put those out.”

Dobson said the role of principal requires more delegation.

“If anything big or important comes up he is available for that,” he said. “We have a leadership team and each grade level has a team leader. If the team leader comes and they have problems he talks to them or helps them solve the problem.”

“He is more like the big picture and the assistant principal is more daily operations,” Dobson added.

Dobson said Stone, who began serving as principal of Westwood Middle School in 2021, did nothing wrong in his role, but was just interested in a change.

Dobson said he will continue on in his role as athletic director for the school while finishing up the school year as the interim principal.

“Anita Gannon is my assistant, and she helps out a great deal, she is also our softball coach,” Dobson said. “It is not too bad in spring, all the games are scheduled, we have buses and referees…all I really have to do is when the rain hits just reschedule games.”

The Westwood Middle School principal position will be posted as open at the close of the school year. Dobson said he wants to see how the rest of the year plays out before he makes any final decisions about applying for the permanent position.

“Right now we will have to see,” he said. “We have 11 Mondays left and we will see what happens at the end.”