by Jody L. Sullivan

The principal is leaving East Somerville Community School and taking over the principal positions at both the Brown and Cummings schools.

“I’ll be 51 in June, if I don’t make the change now when will I? I was looking for a different challenge and the opportunity arose,” said Thelma E. Davis, who for 25 years has worked at the ESCS.

Davis has been a teacher, vice principal, and finally, principal, at ESCS. “This is where my career began, was molded and shaped,” she said.

Taking over Davis’s position of principal is Holly Hatch, a Spanish-speaking Somerville resident who is currently the acting principal of the Cambridgeport School in Cambridge.

Davis said Hatch is a great choice. “The school committee chose someone with a good fit for Somerville.”

ESCS is the largest elementary school in Somerville. Spanish is the primary language of the majority of ESCS’s students, she said.

“The building needed someone in the main office who spoke Spanish. Many of the parents who come in don’t speak English so Hatch will be a major asset for them,” said Davis.

This is also the first year the Unidos program was introduced to ESCS.  Unidos is a two-way language program where students are taught 50% of the day in Spanish and 50% of the day in English. The goal is to produce bilingual and biliterate students who are respectful of their own cultures and the cultures of others, said Davis.

Davis said the program has been in Somerville for five years, but this is the first year it was at ESCS.

“It’s been very successful so far. There are great parents and teachers involved in the program,” she said.

Currently, the program is being implemented in grades kindergarten through fifth grade, but the sixth grade could be added as early as this fall, she said.

Parents definitely want to see it become K-8. However, the younger the kids the easier it is to take to learning new things, she said.

Although she is excited and looking forward to her new positions, Davis said she will miss ESCS a lot.

“I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the finest teachers in Somerville,” she said.

Hatch said she is excited about her new position and would like to make a difference in the city where she lives.