Three educators will bring their passion for serving students to Marion City Schools following school board action this month. The Marion City Schools Board of Education approved contracts that start next school year for Nichole Jiran, Benjamin Porter and Leah Filliater.
The district hired Jiran, currently a superintendent at Hopewell-Loudon Schools in Bascam, to serve as its new director of teaching and learning.
Porter, an assistant principal at Olentangy Meadows Elementary School in Lewis Center, will take over as principal at George Washington Elementary when Les Ryle retires at the end of the school year.
Filliater, principal at Wynford Elementary School, is returning to Benjamin Harrison Elementary School where she previously worked as principal.
Nichole Jiran
Jiran has led the Hopewell-Loudon School District since 2012. She previously worked as an assistant principal at Southwest Licking, New Richmond Exempted Village and Westerville City school districts. She has experience teaching elementary students at Sycamore Community Schools and the New Richmond Exempted Village School District.
Jiran said the director of teaching and learning position interested her because it focuses on improving student learning and instruction, a passion of hers.
“I am looking forward to working with the entire team at Marion city Schools to reach our common mission of inspiring a community of achievement,” she said.
“As I was thinking about this position two words kept coming to mind,” she said. “The words are ‘we can.’ I am looking forward to inspiring the community that we can learn, we can provide quality instruction, and we can improve. Together we can achieve.”
Among Jiran’s duties will be guiding development, implementation and evaluation of curriculum and instructional services and assisting in developing and coordinating sections of the budget that pertain to curriculum and instruction. She will keep abreast of developments in curriculum and instruction and provide leadership in determining their appropriateness in the district educational program from the state and federal levels.
Other duties include guiding professional development, implementation and evaluation of pre-service and in-service training programs for professional personnel and working with building principals to improve individual staff competencies.
Benjamin Porter
Porter has worked as assistant principal at Olentangy Meadows Elementary School in Delaware since 2013. He also serves as Olentangy Local School District’s resident educator elementary administrative liaison.
He has teaching experience as an elementary intermediate specialist at Cheshire Elementary School in Delaware and as an emotionally disturbed/severe behavior handicapped room teacher at Upper Sandusky Middle School.
Porter said he looks forward to working with Marion City Schools because of the clear vision that the district has for the school community.
“Superintendent Gary Barber has an outstanding reputation as a leader, and it is clear the staff in Marion shares his vision,” Porter said. “I believe the changes that have taken place within the district will help create a lasting impact of continuous improvement, and I am looking forward to being able to contribute to and be a part of Marion City Schools.”
He said he believes coming to the district will allow him to continue his passion of creating quality learning environments that inspire youth to achieve.
Leah Filliater
Filliater, a 14-year veteran of Marion City Schools, started working for Marion City Schools as an elementary teacher at Silver Street Elementary School. She spent about four years at Benjamin Harrison before becoming Marion City Schools’ director of curriculum in 2014. She left the district later in 2014 to accept the Wynford Elementary principal position.
She said she wants to return because she misses the “synergy that I had at Benjamin Harrison” and the multiple layers of support that working in a bigger district like Marion City Schools offers.
Filliater complimented the leadership team of Barber and Assistant Superintendent Jen Lawson, saying “I know the district will soar to new heights under their leadership because they are so dedicated, focused and knowledgeable.”
About Marion Online News
