A new principal has been hired for Kingfisher Upper Elementary.

The Kingfisher Board of Education voted Wednesday night at a special meeting to approve the hire of Miranda Shelton for the position.

She was recommended by Superintendent Andy Evans, who has been searching for a replacement for Michelle Jones when she resigned earlier this month to take a position in Yukon.

Approving the recommendation were board members Mike Copeland, Charles Walker and Bill Reitz. Dana Golbek and Brad Wittrock were unable to attend the meeting.

Shelton will also have some duties involving professional development, curriculum and child nutrition.

“I knew of Ms. Shelton by reputation from my time at the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, but I didn’t know her personally,” said Evans.

Shelton has been the elementary principal since 2019 and the special education director since 2022 at Turner Public Schools.

Evans described Turner as “a good school district.”

“It’s really a smaller version of Kingfisher,” he said.

Shelton holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She earned a master’s in educational leadership from East Central University.

She taught elementary at stops in Hydro-Eakly, Plainview (Texas) and Yukon and then was a special education teacher at Thomas in 2010-11.

Shelton taught pre-k at Kingston from 2011-16 and then special education in that district from 2016-19 before making the move to Turner.

Among those taking part in the interviews of candidates were teachers Melody Kuehn, Mark Redwine, Misty Blundell, Liz Walter and Michele Simon. Also involved were Heath Price from the IT department and central office personnel Dawn Tollefson and Pam Werner.

Evans said Shelton interviewed well with the group.

“When Ms. Shelton was interviewing, it was obvious that she is well-skilled and being a special education director made her an even better candidate,” Evans said. “I didn’t really know how she would interact, but she was able to put herself in the position of communicating her skills to the committee.

“It turned into more of a conversation between the committee and her than an interview.”

Evans also praised the work of the principal committee both during Wednesday’s meeting and afterward with the KT&FP. He also credited the staff from within the district who interviewed for the position.

“The committee did some very strong work in the interview process; I was impressed,” he said. “One of the things that impressed me is our two local candidates for the job showed a great deal of professionalism and represented themselves well as did the committee.

“It’s hard to interview someone you see everyday and come away with a true perspective of their skills. We have some really great teachers here, very professional teachers that take their craft seriously.

“This process just reinforced to me how fortunate we are to have the instructional staff that we do.”

Shelton will join Haley Mitchel, an instructional coach for the district’s Rise to Read program, and Gilmour Principal Makylah Tollefson in the curriculum and professional development duties.

Tollefson and Shelton will work together in child nutrition director roles.

“They will be monitoring lunchroom quality this year and we will be doing monthly discussions to make sure the quality of the food is improved,” Evans said.

The move to hire Shelton came after the board met with Evans in executive session for just under 20 minutes.

Other personnel moves made were the hiring of adjunct teachers Chris Starr, Dr. A.J. Johnson and Morgan Finley.

Starr is a new hire who will work in the KUE resource room for math and also coach junior high basketball.

Johnson (photography) and Finley (KHS art) are longtime teachers at the district. Also hired were paraprofessionals Whitney Mathes, Jamie Sigl, Ava Barrett, Kristal Medina, Brooke Smyth and Destiny Brown. Resignations were accepted from Mallori Pool, a paraprofessional at Heritage, and Clairanda Porter, a teacher’s aide at Gilmour. Board members also approved 24 different fundraisers for the 2025-26 school year by various groups within the district.