Dear Riverside Elementary School Staff, Parents and Community:

It gives me great pleasure to announce that LaRonda Peterson has been appointed as principal of Riverside Elementary School (ES), effective Tuesday, January 18, 2022.  Ms. Peterson has over 20 years of experience as an educator.  She is currently the principal at Bucknell ES where she has served for the past five and a half years.   Ms. Peterson has also served as an assistant principal at Bailey’s ES for the Arts and Sciences, as an assistant principal and acting principal at Westlawn ES, and was a LEAD intern at both Laurel Hill ES and Silverbrook ES.  Prior to her administrative experiences, Ms. Peterson served as a classroom teacher at Mount Eagle ES and Franconia ES.

Ms. Peterson has a proven track record of student academic success and teacher professional development.  She is a leader who emphasizes a collaborative culture, empowers teacher leaders and is responsive to the diverse needs of the school community.  The high quality instructional practices that she identified and implemented at Bucknell ES made a measurable difference for all students and closed educational achievement gaps each year. Additionally, under Ms. Peterson’s leadership, her school was often sought as a pilot school when implementing instructional programs such as the Workshop Model in literacy and math, given her strong focus on Tier 1 instruction and the fidelity of implementation.

Ms. Peterson is devoted to empowering and engaging families and focuses on building trusting relationships. During her tenure at Bucknell ES, and leadership experiences as an assistant principal, Ms. Peterson established early learning family initiatives focused on early intervention and building relationships with families and established new and lasting community partnerships.

Ms. Peterson is a highly collaborative leader and is committed to rigor and enrichment for all students.  She successfully launched a local level IV AAP site at Bucknell ES, implemented a Multi-Tiered System of Support framework and led professional development on the use of data to make data informed decisions regarding instruction in grade level collaborative teams to increase student achievement.

Ms. Peterson has exemplified the power of having a shared a vision that aligns with the region and school division to improve student outcomes and experiences.  She looks forward to building partnerships with students, staff, and parents in order to contribute to the culture of success and learning for all at Riverside ES.

Ms. Peterson earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and her Master of Arts in Teaching, Early Childhood Education degrees from Hampton University.  Ms. Peterson has her postgraduate professional license endorsement in Administration and Supervision K-12.  In 2019-20 she was selected as the Region 3 principal of the year and was a finalist for the school division.

Please join me in welcoming Ms. Peterson as the new principal of Riverside Elementary School!

Sincerely,
Grace E. Taylor, Ed.D.
Region 3 Acting Assistant Superintendent