Wiscasset Elementary School’s incoming principal Stacy White has been getting a head start on her job that starts July 1. The Lisbon woman has been going to meetings including the recent special town meeting on the school budget, and otherwise getting to know the department. On May 24, White got further acquainted with her new colleagues and some parents of WES students, at a late day meet-and-greet for her in the school library.

White said she appreciated the chance to talk with people in a less formal setting. That was the idea, said Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot. Wilmot said she wanted to give White the opportunity to connect names and faces of staff and meet parents. The school committee hired the Lisbon Community School teacher in April.

Asked how her orientation has been going, White said, “It’s been great. Heather is so supportive,” she added. Wilmot and other administrators have done a fantastic job mentoring and guiding her, she said. “I’m very pleased.”

White succeeds Mona Schlein, who is retiring. Schlein said she is sticking to business as usual in her final weeks as principal, and helping White with the transition. “I am so confident it will be fine,” Schlein said.

Any time a school gets a new principal, staff members face the uncertainty of what will stay the same and what will change, longtime art teacher Donna Barnes said. “But I’m not one to get stressed about it. Everything will go how it’s going to go.”

Title One teacher Erica Davis said she is excited, but added she will miss Schlein. “Mona’s been a great mentor, but she deserves her retirement,” Davis said.

White is supportive of the great literacy work going on at WES, literacy interventionist Sharon Stevens said. “I’m excited about a new start and seeing what fresh ideas she’ll have.”

Kristen Travers-Whitmore has a second grader and a fifth grader at WES. She said she wanted to attend the event to help welcome White. Her children are not thinking a lot yet about having a new principal. “They’re more focused on the end of the school year,” she said, smiling.