Ellen Minette

The National Middle Level Principal of the Year for this year, named Sept. 11, is Ellen Minette. She heads Heidelberg Middle School in Heidelberg, Germany, a Department of Defense Education Activity school that serves many students whose parents are stationed overseas. Ms. Minette, who has been at the school since 2000, restructured the 650-student school to include block scheduling and groups of smaller, grade-level units. Officials at the NASSP credit students’ improved tests scores in part to these changes. She also worked to recruit and hire more minority educators to increase the diversity of the school’s faculty and better reflect that of the student body.