• James C. Presley

    Principal Presley has served the field of education for 28 years.  Twenty-five of the twenty-eight years has been in his hometown of Wildwood, Florida where he served as a classroom teacher, head coach of basketball, Assistant Principal, and Principal. After serving his hometown for 11 years as an administrator, Principal Presley requested a transfer to the alternative school for personal and professional reasons.  This transfer resulted in the founding of a new school, Sumter PREP Academy, which he is currently the Proud Principal.

     

    Principal Presley became the Principal of Sumter Alternatives School in 2013.  After three years of implementing systems to shift the negative perception of the alternative school, the school was closed and a new school was founded!  Principal Presley and his TEAM FOUNDED a new approach to alternative education called Sumter PREP Academy.  The Positive Response Educational Program was birthed in 2016.  As Principal of Sumter PREP Academy, he is leading the mandate of creating a culture that helps students to strive for a positive R.A.A.A.P, shift from students to scholars, and move their behavioral and academic needles. As the instructional leader of Sumter PREP Academy, Principal Presley’s leadership has produced a Positive Response Education Program that focuses on building a positive school culture while moving the academic needle.  The PREP has received international, national, state, and local recognition.  Recently, the PREP was recognized by the Governor for demonstrating student growth and teaching excellence.  

     

    Principal Presley believes that a highly effective school culture includes a culture of vision and leadership, recognition and celebration, intervention and support, attendance and learning, and empowerment and employment. He has a passion to shift the trajectory of a student’s life by helping them to find their value.  This passion to help others can be attributed to the lessons learned from his mom, the late Delores Presley.  She was a single mom who raised seven children, as a waitress.  Moreover, she was a praying mother who dealt with poverty by making sacrifices for the future of her children. 

     

    James C. Presley is married to Yolanda F. Presley; together they have two children, Shakinah and Malachi Presley.  He is the second of seven children born to the late Delores Presley.  He was raised in a single parent home in Wildwood, Florida.  He graduated from Wildwood High School in 1986 and matriculated at Flagler College to complete his B.A. Degree in Business Administration in 1991.  He earned his Masters Degree in Education with a concentration in Educational Leadership from Troy University in 2005.  He is a member of the National Alternative Education Association, Florida Alternative Educators Association, Black Educators Rock, Inc., Targeted Selection Interview committees of Seminole, Lake and Sumter Counties, 1st Vice-President-NAACP Sumter County Branch . He was inducted in the Flagler College Athletic Hall of Fame (2008) and the Wildwood Middle High School Inaugural Athletic Hall of Fame (2019).