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Peirce Elementary Hires New Principal, Lori Zaimi

By Mina Bloom | June 3, 2015 5:54am
 Lori Zaimi at a public forum last week.
Lori Zaimi at a public forum last week.
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DNAinfo/Mina Bloom

ANDERSONVILLE — After deliberations that took four months, Lori Zaimi was selected as the new principal of Helen C. Peirce Elementary School.

Peirce's Local School Council voted Tuesday night to offer Zaimi a four-year contract with the North Side elementary school at 1423 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., according to Maria Rodriguez, a community representative on the council.

Zaimi is replacing Nancy Mendez, who served at the helm of the school before the council voted to part ways with her earlier this year in the wake of 12-year-old McKenzie Philpot's suicide. 

Rodriguez said all 11 council members voted in favor of hiring Zaimi. She beat out finalists Denise Makowski and Ginger Hiltz, who were also vying for the position.

"So excited and on the same page," Rodriguez said in an email of the decision to hire Zaimi.

As a parent of a student at Peirce and a longtime resident of Edgewater, Zaimi said at public forum last week that she has experienced changes at the school firsthand.

"It's an extremely divided school," she said. "There's a lot of division among community and staff. That's something I'll work on."

She also praised the former administration, saying "they have done a phenomenal job but I want to move forward."

Most recently, Zaimi was the assistant principal at Daniel Boone Elementary in West Rogers Park, where she said she worked proactively with parents and teachers and was "extremely visible."

She is not a fluent Spanish speaker, but, unlike the other two candidates vying for the position, gave her opening statement in Spanish in addition to English. Zaimi said she hopes to hire a vice principal who is fluent in Spanish in order to better lead the bilingual community.

When asked about the suicide at the forum, Zaimi shed tears, saying it is "extremely important to have systems in place that can support students."

Rodriguez previously told DNAinfo Chicago that Mendez's handling of the tragedy was a "catalyst" in the decision to let her go, but that other reasons such as a lack of accessibility played a large part in the decision-making process as well.

McKenzie's parents filed a lawsuit against Chicago Public Schools, saying bullying at the school was to blame. But CPS "found no credible evidence" that McKenzie was bullied before she committed suicide in May 2014. 

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