Ella Dorfman

Principal Rick Fleming formally informs Superintendent Mark Rendell of his intent to retire at the end of the school during the Feb. 6 school board meeting in Viera. “I’m getting quite nostalgic about the many years that we’ve spent together working with kids,” Fleming said. “But I know it’s time to retire.”

Flipping through his calendar, Principal Rick Fleming realizes his retirement date is fast-approaching. And with three months left until the end of the school year, the search for the new principal is under way.
“I think that we’re going to have some high-quality applicants for the position,” he said. “Hopefully, it’ll be Mr. Fleming 2.0 that comes in here.”
Sherri Bowman, Brevard Public Schools Director of Secondary Programs, supervises the administration of 14 schools, including West Shore. Her role is to oversee the site analysis process, in which district representatives survey community members to find out which characteristics they would like to see in new administrators.
According to Bowman, the district plans to advertise Fleming’s position in March.
“Once that ad goes out, I will come [to] your school and I have specific questions that I ask,” Bowman said. “I talk to the teachers, I talk to the students and I have an evening meeting where I talk to parents and community people.”
Bowman’s questions focus on 10 principal competencies, or skills, that a principal would need to be proficient in. Those selected for the survey will answer which competencies are most important to them.
“[Some] questions talk about what the current principal is doing and some about what our hopes and dreams are for the new principal,” Bowman said. “However, every school is very different. And I can tell you, dealing with West Shore, relationships and communication are going to be two things that are going to be extremely important [for] the new person to bring in.”
Fleming said he wants the new principal to be “more astute with some of the contemporary issues nowadays.”
“While my technical knowledge base is adequate, I would say there are many new things [and issues] coming out,” Fleming said. “Especially in mental health, digital learning opportunities, [artificial intelligence], things like that. A new principal is going to have to tackle and challenge it, and I think it’d be good for the school.”
Once Bowman and her team collect the data, they will summarize and share it with Superintendent Mark Rendell. The information will affect the next stage of the selection process: interviewing.
With his team, BPS Chief of Schools James Rehmer vets candidates after the site analysis.
“West Shore is obviously one of the top schools in the nation,” Rehmer said. “So would we like to look at national people? Sure, that would be a good avenue to pursue. But we also want to make sure that we look at the people that are internally here, either in Brevard or locally in Florida, that would fulfill that role also. We always have to take into consideration that when you do a national search and you’re talking to people from extended mileage away, there’s a lot of logistics that go into that person actually coming to Brevard County. We have to make sure that we have solid commitments from anybody we interview that, if selected, this would be their destination.”
This was the case for Satellite High School Principal Courtney Lundy, who was previously the principal of Stone Middle School. She took on the job in January when the school’s previous principal was promoted to a district position. She described the hiring process as “professional” and “standard.”
“It was about two weeks, but that can change depending on the time of year [and] the need,” Lundy said. “Once Mr. [Bobby] Pruett got promoted, they posted the Satellite position pretty quickly and hired [me]. It was almost the same thing [at Stone], because their principal had actually resigned a few days before school started.”
With 29 years of administrative experience, Fleming has mentored many principals in the county, including Lundy.
“Mr. Fleming is one of my go-to principals,” Lundy said. “I [talked] to him as I was preparing for the interview, just to kind of touch base on high school and whatnot. He’s super-supportive, and with all of his experience, he gives good feedback and insight. And he’s just fun to talk to. He kind of eases your nerves and helps you prepare.”
While the process took two weeks for Lundy, it will likely take longer for Fleming’s replacement, according to Bowman.
“Now, if they [post the advertisement] in early March, we might have a candidate by spring break,” Bowman said. “[But] that would be really fast, and I don’t know that that would happen. But yes, we do want somebody who can come before the students are gone. We do want somebody to come and learn the facility [and] have time with Mr. Fleming. There are a lot of things the new person is going to have to understand, and talking with the current principal is the best way to get a good start on that.”
Fleming said he hopes the district will choose the next principal soon.
“Hopefully we’ll have somebody named shortly after spring break,” Fleming said. “That way I can start bringing whoever that person is around to School Advisory Council meetings, to PTA meetings, to Wildcat Challenge, to some of the school culture type stuff that we do, you know, Senior Project, Capstone task presentations, things like that.”
Despite the uncertain timeline, Bowman said site analysis has become “a very successful way of picking principals.”
“When you do the ‘data dive’ first, it becomes very obvious who’s going to meet the need of the school,” Bowman said. “It does take a long time, but it’s an extremely important process, so it deserves the time that it takes. I know that it’s frustrating to wait on getting a new principal, but it really is worth taking the time to do it correctly.”