West Bloomfield Schools Names New Principal at Doherty Elementary

will be led by Molly Funk in the upcoming school year.

The hiring of Funk to replace for Birmingham Pembroke Elementary School in July, was approved by the West Bloomfield School District Board of Education at a special meeting Wednesday morning.

Funk, 33, of Canton first became a principal at age 26 at Vandenberg Elementary School in Wayne and served for seven years as principal at three schools in the Wayne-Westland School District. Funk is an Eastern Michigan University doctoral student in EMU's educational leadership program.

In January, she received EMU’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Student Humanitarian Award, which recognizes “an EMU student who has demonstrated a commitment to promoting respect and improving the quality of life of all people consistent with the ideas of King and demonstrated service to EMU and/or the southeastern Michigan community.”

Beth Johnson, a professor of teacher education at EMU, noted at the time that families in the district had requested that Funk be elevated to principal despite her relatively young age.

"(Funk) constantly creates opportunities for students by obtaining alternative resources and through intervention," Johnson said. "She is undeterred, first in meeting basic human needs for her students and their families, and then in creating mechanisms to find resources to help them not only survive, but thrive."

Funk received her bachelor's degree in elementary education at Western Michigan University in 1999 and her master's degree at Marygrove College in Detroit in 2000, according to WBSD public relations coordinator Pam Zajac.

Zajac said Funk has four children between the ages of 8 and 2.