A 17-year veteran of education in Beaufort County has been named principal of Snowden Elementary School.

Melissa Dana, assistant principal at Northeast Elementary School, was unanimously named to the post by the Beaufort County Board of Education Thursday night as part of several personnel changes made by the board. Her promotion was effective Friday.

Dana, of Washington, succeeds Virginia Simmons who was recently named to the post of director of pathways at the Ed Tech Center effective July 1.

Patricia Horton will succeed Dana as assistant principal at Northeast Elementary School.

The vote came at the end of nearly two hours of closed-door discussions by the school board at a special called meeting, most of which was in consultation with board lawyers Kim Edwards and Rod Malone of Tharrington Smith in Raleigh.

Following the vote on the public schools’ personnel agenda, several board members left the meeting, citing previous commitments.

Board Chairman Robert Belcher, noting a lack of a quorum, delayed discussion on the remaining items on the agenda — including changes in driver’s education and an update on the Beaufort County Schools budget — until a later meeting.

Dana has served in education positions in Beaufort County since 1993 when she joined the Northeast Elementary School faculty as a language arts teacher, a post she held until 2008 when she was named assistant principal at the school.

Since 2002, Dana has served as a presenter with the North Carolina Teacher Academy in Morrisville and, from 2003 to 2005, she taught a class for teachers renewing their credentials at Beaufort County Community College.

Dana earned a bachelor’s degree in history from University of Maine at Orono in 1986, a teacher certification in middle grades language arts and social studies from East Carolina University in 1990 and a master’s degree in school administration in 2007. She earned her National Board Certification in 2002.

School board members Eltha Booth and Barbara Boyd-Williams were absent from the meeting.