After 46 years in teaching, this Midlands educator is stepping down as principal
A longtime principal at a Midlands elementary school has announced her retirement.
Deerfield Elementary School Principal Janet Malone will leave the Lexington-area school at the end of the school year, completing a 46-year career in education, the Lexington 1 school district announced Tuesday.
Malone has led Deerfield since the school opened in 2014.
“Few people have given as much of themselves to educating children as Jan Malone,” Lexington District One Superintendent Greg Little said in a statement. “For more than 4 decades, she taught countless students, served their families, led and mentored educators, and dedicated herself to our community. I appreciate the depth of experience she shared with our district. She will be missed, but she deserves to enjoy a wonderful retirement after such a fulfilling career.”
Under Malone’s leadership, Deerfield was recognized as a Leadership Lighthouse School and is the only elementary school in the United States named a PASCH School by the German government-backed Goethe-Institut because of Deerfield’s German immersion program.
Malone began her career in 1976 as a teacher at the Sloan Academy. She moved to Wildewood School a year later and became its head of afterschool programs as it transitioned to St. John Neumann Catholic School. She became the assistant principal there in 1990.
In 1992, she moved to teaching first grade at Bethel-Hanberry Elementary School, and two years later moved to second grade at Chapin Elementary. She moved to Lexington-Richland 5’s Lake Murray Elementary School in 1997, became an administrative assistant at Irmo Elementary in 1999, assistant principal at River Springs Elementary in 2000, and helped to open Ballentine Elementary in 2002.
She joined Lexington 1 in 2005, and was principal at White Knoll Elementary for nine years before she opened Deerfield. In 2016, she was Lexington 1’s administrator of the year.
Malone holds two bachelor’s degrees from Limestone College in elementary education and early childhood education, and master’s degrees in early childhood education and education administration from the University of South Carolina.
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