10/14/2026
National Principal's Month continues today as we catch up with Opelika Middle School principal, Ms. Kristen Williams!
Q: What inspired you to enter education, and how did you progress to your current role of principal?
A: "I have always loved people. When I started out, I thought I was going to be a counselor, so I got my undergrad in psychology. But I went back and got my master's in education because I wanted to help people but I wanted to be around kids too. Dr. Seymore was really influential with pushing me into getting my educational leadership degree, so I went into instructional coaching, then was given an opportunity to move into administration. But I just think of it as a bigger classroom."
Q: What is something you're most proud of at OMS this year?
A: "I am so proud of the work that the teachers and students are doing. We are focusing this year specifically on strengthening Tier 1 instruction in the classroom, but then we're also doing a really big push on vocabulary instruction, root words and decoding skills. They're learning different roots and prefixes and suffices, and the whole purpose is to make sure they have these skills where if they don't know a word, they can decode it and have somewhere to go with it."
Q: What is something you want the Opelika community to know about the world that principals do in our system every day?
A: "I hope they know that we are on their side. We are their biggest advocate and partner, and we can't do it without them. And I hope they feel that way about us as well, because we are better together and we're stronger together. We both want the same outcome - for their student to be successful. If they know that we're here to be alongside them and we're here to make sure they're successful in any way that we can, then I'll be happy with that message."
