Alachua County Public Schools appoints 10 new principals, 2 lead administrators

Alachua County Public Schools has named 10 new principals to new positions within the district at a recent board meeting.

The district also appointed two new heads to departments within the public school system, one of whom was previously named Florida's Teacher of the Year.

The new principals will all be in charge of schools in time for the start of the 2022-2023 school year that will kick off in August.

Here are the district's new principalsprinciples:

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Holly Burton,  Alachua Elementary School

Burton will serve as the new principal of Alachua Elementary School, located at 13800 Northwest 152nd Place, after previously working at Shell Elementary School. A long-time educator within the school district she taught for six years at Talbot Elementary School and two years at Newberry Elementary. She later became the assistant principal at Hidden Oak Elementary School.

Ed Haukland, Shell Elementary School

Haukland, the now-former assistant principal at Wile Elementary School, is taking Burton’s place at Shell Elementary School, located at 21633 65th Ave. He worked as an Elementary School teacher in Palm Beach County Schools from 2003 to 2010. He left education for a brief period to work as a project manager and grant writer for a non-profit company in Melrose. He was brought back to the district to work as a teacher at Talbot and Meadowbrook Elementary schools. In 2013 Haukland became dean of Hugh Springs Community School.

Heather Harbour, Terwilliger Elementary School

Harbour was recently appointed as the new principal of Terwilliger Elementary School, at 3999 SW 122nd St. She was a former first-grade teacher at Norton Elementary School for five years before moving to the district office as the supervisor of staff development. In 2014, she became the assistant principal at High Springs Community School, before becoming principal of Alachua Elementary School in 2017.

John Green, principal of Lincoln Middle School

Green began working with Alachua County Public Schools in 2007 as a family liaison specialist with Head Start. He then moved to Hawthorne Middle/High School where he was the dean, activities director and classroom teacher.

From 2013 to 2021, Green had a host of roles, working as an assistant principal at Sidney Lanier School, Hawthorne Middle/High, Buchholz High, Meadowbrook Elementary and Gainesville High schools.

On top of being the new principal of Lincoln Middle School, at 1001 Southeast 12th St., he also serves as the district’s manager of Special Projects where he oversees educational programs, including charter and magnet programs.

Royce Kamman, principal of Hawthorne High School

Kamman leaves behind his principal position at A. Quinn Jones Center. Kamman has been a teacher with the district since 1996, beginning his work as a social studies teacher at Hawthorne Middle/High School. He continued to teach social studies at Eastside High School in 2002 and later transferred to Westwood Middle School to teach physical education in 2004.

He also served as an assistant principal at Howard Bishop Middle School in 2006 and assistant principal at Hawthorne Middle/High School in 2012.

Daniel Ferguson, principal of Gainesville High School

Ferguson leaves his role as principal of Hawthorne/Middle High School and is moving on to Gainesville High School. His first teaching position in the district was in 1999 at A. Quinn Jones Center. He then served as an assistant principal at Buchholz High School in 2004 before going to Oakview Middle School as an assistant principal. In 2011, he became principal of Idylwild Elementary School. He ultimately went back to A. Quinn Jones in 2015 to serve as principal for four years.

Jesely Alvarez, Alachua eSchool

Alvarez was most recently the principal for the new Terwilliger Elementary School. She got her start in Alachua County Public Schools as an assistant principal at Duval Early Learning Academy before being an assistant principal of the older Terwilliger building before being promoted.

Before Alachua County, she was a teacher in a K-8 school in the Edmonds School District in Washington from 1998 through 2005. She also served as a curriculum coordinator for the American Cultural Exchange in Seattle, Washington.

Between 2005 and 2011, she served as a middle school assistant principal in two districts in Washington. And in 2011 became the principal of an international elementary school in Seattle before becoming a principal in the Guadalupe School district.

Bonnie Bing, A.Quinn Jones Center

Bing moves from an assistant principal position to principal at A. Quinn Jones Center, located at 1108 NW 7th Ave.

Before her time at A. Quinn as a teacher, she was an ESE paraprofessional at Alachua Elementary School. She was later named Alachua’s Behavior Resource Teacher in 2008 before becoming the assistant principal. In 2019, she became the assistant principal at Santa Fe High School.

Jacquette Rolle, K-12 improvement

Rolle began her teaching career in Alachua County Public Schools in 2002 at Duval Elementary School. She held various roles as a clinical education teacher, mentor, a Title 1 intervention teacher and reading coach.

Rolle moved on to work as regional reading coordinator and school improvement specialist for the Office of Differentiated Accountability with the Florida Department of Education. She returned to the district in 2014 as the curriculum resource teacher at Williams Elementary School before becoming the school's assistant principal the following year. She also served as the principal of Metcalfe Elementary School in 2018.

She leaves behind her role at the district office as the director of professional development.

Diane Leinenbach, K-12 improvement

Leinenbach served as principal of Gainesville High School for the school year 2021-2022.

She was previously an athletic trainer in Marion County Public Schools in 1999. She held various years in Marion County such as teacher, dean, assistant principal and district assistant principal. She also served as the principal of Oakcrest Elementary School within the district.

In 2019, she was named the regional director of the Bureau of School Improvement at the Florida Department of Education. In that role, she provided support to districts and schools in the Southeast region to turn around struggling schools.

The district's new directors:

Dakeyan ‘Dre’ Graham, director of educational equity and outreach 

Graham's teaching career began in 2009 at C. Leon King High School in Tampa, where he was director of instrumental studies. He remained in that position until 2020. He was a faculty member at both Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee and a fine arts instructor with the Hillsborough County Hospital Homebound Program.

Graham was named Florida's teacher of the year in 2020.

From 2020 until 2022, he was the executive director of the Office of Independent Education and Parental Choice/School Improvement with the Florida Department of Education.

LaTroy Strappy, director of school choice

Strappy was the former principal of Lincoln Middle School. He began his career at Alachua County Public Schools at Howard Bishop Middle School as ESE teacher.

He left the district before returning in 2000 as a substitute teacher. In 2001, he became the varying exceptionalities teacher and a guidance counselor at Eastside High School. In 2005, he became assistant principal at Newberry High School.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Alachua County school district appoints 10 new school principals, 2 administrators