Students at Phillips Middle School will have a new principal when they start classes in late August.

On Monday, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools announced the hiring of Principal Rydell Harrison of Hairston Middle School in Greensboro.

Harrison has worked in education for 17 years, first as a music teacher in New Jersey, and later as a middle school assistant principal and an elementary school principal in Guilford County.

He was named principal at Hairston Middle School in 2011.

Harrison got his undergraduate education degree at Rutgers, and went on to earn a master’s degree in Theology at Duke, and a master’s degree in School Administration at UNC- Greensboro.

In a press release, Superintendent Tom Forcella said that Harrison was hired following “a very rigorous selection process.”