The Wake County school board appointed Elaine Hanzer as the interim principal of Root Elementary School in Raleigh this evening.

Hanzer, who has done various interim principal positions since her retirement, was the principal of Wake Forest-Rolesville Middle School from 2004 to 2011. She will be at Root from March 1 to April 12.

Hanzer will take over for Drew Ware, who accepted a principal's position in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system.

Ken Branch is retiring as principal of Brentwood Elementary School in North Ralegh just a few months after being named the Wake County School System's 2012 Principal of the Year.

Tonight, the school board appointed Teresa Abron, a retired principal, to be Brentwood's interim principal starting Dec. 3 and running through May 31. Board members said they were surprised by Branch's retirement.

In other principal appointments:

SEE UPDATE AT END OF POST FOR BIO SHEETS

The Wake County school board announced Tuesday two new high school principals and two interim principals.

Patti Hamler will now be principal of Wake Forest-Rolesville High School with a salary of $124,043. Hamler is a former high school principal who has been principal of Leesville Road Middle School in North Raleigh since 2007.

David Schwenker will be principal of Southeast Raleigh HIgh School with a salary of $109,137. Schwenker has been principal of Carnage Middle School in Raleigh since 2009.

The one figure that people kept repeating out of Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting was 35 percent.

As noted in today's article, 35 percent is this year's gain in Algebra I enrollment under the new EVAAS placement guidelines compared to last year's total. There was a 26 percent increase in pre-Algebra enrollment. Overall, the gain for both courses was 30 percent.

"I know this is new for a lot of principals, but I want to really thank all of you for taking on the challenges," said school board member John Tedesco, chairman of the task force at Thursday's meeting. "Because of that we saw measurable gains. You can’t dispute that. A 35 percent increase is impressive."

UPDATE

SEE END OF POST FOR THURSDAY'S POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ON MATH PLACEMENT UPDATE