Moulton
Moulton ISD
The Moulton Eagle

New principal hired at Moulton Elementary School

  • Former Moulton High graduate Victoria Nieto Ortiz, who was working as a middle school principal with Comal ISD, returns to her hometown as the new elementary school principal, after April Simper resigns to spend more time as a mother.
    Former Moulton High graduate Victoria Nieto Ortiz, who was working as a middle school principal with Comal ISD, returns to her hometown as the new elementary school principal, after April Simper resigns to spend more time as a mother.

    Moulton ISD announced Friday, June 17, that Victoria Nieto Ortiz was hired to fill the vacancy at the elementary campus, which opened when current principal April Simper resigned her post to the MISD board of directors at their regular monthly business meeting held earlier this month. 

    “Four extremely well qualified candidates applied for the position,” MISD Superintendent Renee Fairchild told the newspaper Sunday. “I wish I could have hired them all, but it ultimately went to Ortiz based mostly on the outstanding experience she brought with her.

    In fact, Fairchild said she contacted Ortiz from San Antonio last week to notify her that she’d been selected for the position. A Moulton High School graduate from the mid-2000s, Ortiz got her bachelor’s degree and teacher certification in 2010 from Texas State University in San Marcos, and later obtained her master’s degree from Lamar University. 

    Fairchild and most of the board members just returned home from the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Summer Leadership Institute, held June 15-18 in San Antonio. There, several board members—including the board’s newest member, Debra Luksovsky, winner of the recent school board race against Mary Kay Fishbeck, caught up on some much-needed board training hours offered there. 

    Between school construction projects, new superintendent hires and keeping up with the general business of running a school, there’s been little time for board training opportunities of late. 

    “It was a great conference,” Fairchild said. “Not only did we all get to know one another a lot better, but I think it was extremely useful for everyone to visit with the other boards who were there as well. It helps to be reminded sometimes that we’re dealing the3 same sorts of issues and concerns everywhere.”

    Fairchild said that all four of the elementary school principal candidates were former Moulton graduates. 

    “I think that says a lot, too, that we have that many interested and wanting to return here, after they’ve gone off and worked elsewhere,” she said. “It says a lot about this community and the love it has for its schools.”

    Ortiz was working as a middle school principal with Comal ISD near New Braunfels before she accepted the job to come back to Moulton.

    April Simper, who resigned at the June 8 school board meeting, said she left the job mainly so that she had more time to spend with her own little ones, versus looking out for everyone else’s.