Rolesville High’s new principal is a veteran Wake County educator

Just like her eighth-graders, Dhedra Lassiter is moving on to Rolesville High School.

Lassiter, 49, has been the principal of Rolesville Middle School since it opened in 2012. On July 1, she will report to Rolesville High as its new principal.

As a veteran educator, Lassiter has experience working in new schools. Rolesville High, which graduated its first senior class this month, opened in 2013.

“This is a fourth time I’ve been involved in either building a school from the ground up or growing a young school,” she said.

Lassiter started her career as a science and math teacher for Durham Public Schools in 1989. She came to Wake County schools in 1993, teaching for about six years before moving to the human resources department.

Four years later, Lassiter became an assistant principal at the newly opened Heritage Middle School in Wake Forest and eventually became principal.

She helped open Rolesville Middle and was named Wake’s Principal of the Year in 2014.

Lassiter attributes her success to staying organized and building relationships in her school and her community – skills she plans to use at Rolesville High.

The school’s current principal, Ericka Lucas, announced at the end of the school year that she would leave Rolesville to take over as director of Wake’s Second Chance Online Resource for Education, which allows students to continue their studies while serving long-term suspensions.

Lucas said she hoped changing jobs would allow her to spend more time with her son and husband, Reginald Lucas, a health and physical education teacher and football coach at Wake Forest High School.

Nearly 75 people applied for the Rolesville High principal job, said Edward McFarland, area superintendent for eastern Wake.

During input sessions with Wake school officials, parents and staff emphasized the need for an administrator with lots of proven experience as a principal, McFarland said.

“(Lassiter) is just really on top of things and I think she’s really a great asset to taking the school to the next level,” he said.

This is the first time Lassiter will work in a school with a traditional calendar as an administrator.

“Year-round school is much like running a marathon,” she said. “You just keep moving.”

Having a summer without students will give her a chance to meet with teachers and staff to get an idea what the school community wants for the future.

“One of the first things I want to do is sit down with the assistant principals and say, ‘Were are we, and where are we headed?’ ” she said.

She plans to ease into the new job and hopes to watch and learn about how the school operates.

“Once the kids come back, you have to figure out the lay of the land and what you can do to be supportive,” she said.

Lassiter said she has already started reaching out to faculty and staff.

“You’re only as good as your team, and the team has to work on that vision together,” she said.

Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles, who lobbied hard to get the $75 million high school built in Rolesville, said he was pleased to hear that Lassiter is taking over.

“She’s done a great job with the middle school, because she started it and brought it up to a great school,” he said. “And so I think she’ll keep doing that with the high school.”

Retired educator Michael Chappell will take over at Rolesville Middle until a new principal is announced.

This story was originally published June 24, 2016 at 10:24 AM with the headline "Rolesville High’s new principal is a veteran Wake County educator."