HUNTERSVILLE — Julie Thornley has been named principal at St. Mark School in Huntersville after working for Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools for more than a decade at St. Ann School as a counselor and St. Patrick School as assistant principal.
Thornley, a member of St. Mark Church, has a degree in social work from George Mason University, with a minor in music education and a master’s degree in school counseling from North Carolina State University. She has a post-master’s certificate in school administration from UNC-Charlotte and was part of the Aspiring Principals program.
Thornley has worked as a behavioral therapist with at-risk youth involved with the juvenile justice system in alternative settings as well as a school counselor in public schools. She has also taught piano lessons for more than 35 years.
“It’s very exciting to be not only principal, but to be principal of a K-8 population,” Thornley said. “I started my education at a St. Mark School in Indianapolis and it’s neat that I’ve landed at another St. Mark School as principal.”
She said she’d like to see St. Mark School and parish become more closely connected, with more parishioners involved in the school and more students engaged in parish activities.
“My educational philosophy is rooted in my Catholic faith,” Thornley wrote in a letter introducing herself to the school community. “I believe that all learners possess strengths and gifts given to them by our Lord. With that belief, it is the duty of every educator to ensure that all students are given every opportunity to grow spiritually, academically, socially and emotionally.”
She stressed that she wants to put an emphasis on the students being united in the goal of being Jesus to others.
“Our priority is to grow spiritually as a community,” she said.
St. Mark School has more than 700 kindergarten through eighth-grade students.
— Kimberly Bender, online reporter