Deborah McCollum, current acting principal of Covington High School, will be calling the school home as the permanent principal.

In her acceptance at the school board meeting Thursday night, she said she was told that at CHS, they are not simply a high school, but a family. “Thank you for accepting me in your family,” she said. “Covington High is the best kept secret in the parish and I am ready to let this secret out and let everyone know how great this school is.”

She also joked that she was pleased to have the opportunity to act as principal for a year, “So I could decide what I wanted to be when I grow up.”

Deborah McCollum

McCollum was teacher of the year at Fontainebleau High School. She was also instrumental in the development, evaluation, revision, and implementations of LEAP and GEE summer remediation curricula, weighted grade curriculum and guaranteed curriculum for math grades eight through 12.

As a curriculum specialist, she also was involved in collaborating, supporting and training teachers in effective teaching methods, rubrics, writing and scoring assessments, differentiated instruction, curriculum topic studies, literacy strategies and classroom integration of computer and other technology applications.

McCollum began her teaching career in 1974 in Mississippi. She holds a master’s degree in secondary education from SLU with plus 30 course work in administration and supervision.

She served as an assistant principal at Covington from 2007-2009 and was a secondary mathematics curriculum specialist from 2000-2007. Her classroom experience included teaching various high school math courses including algebra, geometry, gifted calculus and advanced math at Fontainebleau High School from 1994-2000 and at Pearl River High 1989-1994. She had taught in Mississippi prior to St. Tammany.�