Montville ― For the first time in more than a decade, Dr. Charles E. Murphy Elementary school will have a new principal.

With an “enthusiastic” recommendation from Superintendent Laurie Pallin, the Board of Education on Tuesday appointed Elizabeth “Liz” Dumond, 45, of East Lyme, to take over leadership of the school starting July 1.

Current principal Amy Espinoza is retiring after 12 years of service.

“I’m just really excited to get started,” Dumond told the board, with her husband and two sons by her side.

Pallin said Tuesday that Dumond, who has worked for Montville Schools for 20 years, was the strongest candidate vetted by a nine-person committee.

Dumond started as a paraprofessional in 2003 and stayed in that role for two years before getting her own fourth-grade classroom at Mohegan Elementary. She bounced between teaching fourth- and fifth-graders for a few years.

Dumond has spent the past eight years as a math and science instructional coach, a position Pallin said Dumond was instrumental in developing. Dumond explained Friday that instructional coaches help teachers develop curriculum and instruction strategies in all three elementary schools in the district.

Dumond served as interim principal of Mohegan Elementary School in the spring of 2021 while simultaneously serving as part-time interim assistant principal at Tyl Middle School .

“In every role, she has capably risen to more than meet our expectations,” Pallin said Tuesday.

As a member of student government in her youth, Dumond said she always saw herself in a leadership position some day.

A native of Randolph, Mass., Dumond said she graduated from Holy Cross in 1999 without much career direction. Her grandmother and mother both were school teachers, which inspired her to get her teacher’s certification as a graduate student. She graduated from Cambridge College in 2003 with a master’s degree in elementary education. She married her husband the same day and moved to Connecticut.

Dumond said she is excited for the new challenge of being outside of the classroom and the management aspect of the job.

“I’m really looking forward to being the instructional leader,” she said.

Dumond said she has had the opportunity to work alongside Espinoza in her role as an instructional coach and will be able to use the last few months of the school year to shadow her, which she believes will allow for a natural transition.

Pallin called Espinoza a calm and empathetic leader with a true love for the students and staff.

“Murphy’s teachers told our (principal) candidates that the greatest attribute of the school is the relationships and sense of family that Amy has helped to cultivate,” Pallin said.

Under Espinoza’s leadership, Murphy has received school of distinction awards and served as the pilot for the district’s first RULER program, a social-emotional learning model that is now used across the district.

“Amy’s leadership at Murphy has been instrumental in creating that warm environment,” Dumond said. “She has led those teachers through challenging times, through all the successes that they had, and I’m really lucky to be able to spend the time with her transitioning into the role.”

Espinoza said Murphy is a special place and described her time as principal as wonderful.

“I feel like Liz is getting an amazing gift walking in those doors, and that doesn’t have anything to do with me, it has to do with people inside of it,” Espinoza said.

k.arnold@theday.com