Wake’s top principal has now been named one of North Carolina’s best school leaders
Elena Ashburn, the principal of Broughton High School in Raleigh, has been named one of the eight finalists for the 2021 North Carolina Principal of the Year award.
Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore surprised Ashburn at the school on Monday with the news that she had been named the state’s North Central Region Principal of the Year. A winner among the eight statewide finalists will be announced in the spring.
Ashburn had been named the Wake County school system’s 2020-21 Principal of the Year in October.
This is the second year in a row that the Wake County Principal of the Year has been named a state finalist. Last school year’s Wake winner, Ruth Steidinger of Olive Chapel Elementary School in Apex, also was named the top principal in the North Central Region.
Ashburn has been principal of Broughton, located near downtown Raleigh, since 2017.
Before being picked to lead Raleigh’s oldest public high school, Ashburn was principal of East Garner Middle School and an assistant principal at Fuquay-Varina High School.
She was a high school English teacher in Durham Public Schools before coming to Wake County as an administrative intern in 2011.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 9:43 AM.
