NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) – Newport News Public Schools announced new leadership at Richneck Elementary School, according to officials.
Jacky Barber will serve as Richneck’s principal effective July 1. She’s been principal at Sedgefield Elementary School since July 2020. Prior to that, she was the principal and assistant principal at Riverside Elementary School. She’s also worked as an elementary school teacher and reading and math interventionist, according to NNPS.
Rhonda Chambers-Harmon will serve as Richneck’s assistant principal effective July 1. She’s been assistant principal at Stoney Run Elementary School since August 2019. She’s been with NNPS since 2007 and worked as a teacher at Greenwood Elementary, Newsome Park Elementary, and Palmer Elementary, according to NNPS.
The appointments come six months after a 6-year-old shot his teacher, Abby Zwerner, as she taught her first-grade class. Zwerner survived the Jan. 6 shooting, but her attorneys say she’s coping with ongoing physical and mental scars.
Several people in NNPS leadership left their positions following the shooting and amid allegations that at least one Richneck administrator was warned that the child had a gun, but failed to act or call police.
Dr. George Parker was terminated from his position as superintendent in January, following a school board vote. Briana Foster-Newton, Richneck’s former principal, still works for NNPS but was removed from her position at the elementary school following the shooting.
Through an attorney, she said she was not made aware that a student may have had a gun on the day of the shooting. Dr. Ebony Parker, the former assistant principal at Richneck and the administrator who was allegedly warned about the gun, resigned from her position in January.
Zwerner filed a $40 million lawsuit against the three former administrators at the Newport News School Board alleging that they failed to protect her from the 6-year-old shooter.
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