Indianola Academy is seeking to fill its elementary and high school principal roles for the 2025-26 school year. High school principal Clete Putnam will join Pillow Academy in Greenwood starting at the conclusion of this school year. Elementary school principal Sylvia Spivey will be retiring from her role, which she has held for over a decade. Spivey told The Enterprise-Tocsin that even though she is leaving her principal position, she would like to continue her decades-long career in education next fall. “Both leaders have blessed our students and families with their servant leadership and leave ‘big shoes to fill,’" IA Headmaster Gregg Thompson wrote in a letter to the IA family last week. “They will continue to lead and serve through the remainder of this school year, and I know you will want to express your appreciation to them over the next few months.” Thompson said that he and the board have started the search for candidates for those roles. Putnam, who has served in a variety of administrative and coaching roles at Indianola Academy for over a decade, will be an assistant football coach and an assistant baseball coach at Pillow, according to a posting from the Greenwood-based academy last week. Putnam has been a part of multiple state championship runs with the Colonels, including helping the football team win a title in 2016. That was one year out of five consecutive that IA reached the state title game. The IA baseball team also won a state championship in 2018, while Putnam was head coach. Spivey has been in the classroom and has served as an administrator for a total of 46 years. The Delta State University graduate first went to work as a teacher at Humphreys Academy for five years, followed by a 13-year tenure at the shuttered Central Delta Academy in Inverness. She moved to the public school sector for 16 years, eventually serving as a lead teacher and as a reading coach at Rosser Elementary School. It was while there that she got the call to join Indianola Academy’s staff as its elementary principal, where she has been for the past 13 years. Spivey has overseen growth in both the teachers and students as IA’s principal, currently with 15 classroom teachers, two full-time assistants and 194 students enrolled from Pre-K through sixth grade. “Our teachers are more like a family,” Spivey said. “We are close, and we help each other out a lot.” Spivey’s passion as a teacher and as an administrator has been encouraging students to develop a love for reading. She has also pushed her teachers to continue to develop professionally. “I have encouraged teachers to continue to grow and not just stay in the same (routines),” she said, later adding, “I see the need for continuous growth in all of us.” Along with a bachelor’s degree, Spivey also holds a master’s degree in dyslexia therapy.
