14 Palm Beach County schools will have new principals this year. Check out the list
At least 14 public schools in Palm Beach County and a 15th under construction will have fresh faces at the helm when the new school year begins Aug. 12.
The school board has named new principals at Palm Beach Gardens and Royal Palm Beach high schools along with new leaders for 10 elementary schools and two middle schools. One principal, Dwan Moore Ross, has been named to lead the district's new elementary school near Arden and Westlake when it opens in 2025.
The school board began appointing new school leaders in June and may continue to appoint new principals even after the school year begins.
The number of schools with new leadership at the beginning of an academic year is historically between 10 and 20 across more than 180 Palm Beach County district-operated schools. Leadership changes are driven by a host of personnel matters, including retirements, promotions and departures for other positions.
All of the educators named to principal positions for the 2024-25 school year come from within the district, and many were leaders at other schools. Here's what to know about them:
Palm Beach County schools getting new principals: The upshot
Here are the principal appointments made in preparation for the new school year. If they haven't already, principals will meet students on their new campuses for the first time at the start of the school year:
Barton Elementary — Ana Arce-Gonzalez
Congress Middle — Bernadette Standish
Crosspointe Elementary — Valerie Valcourt
Everglades Elementary — Christy Aliaga
Hagen Road Elementary — O’Mayra Cruz
Palm Beach Gardens High — Michelle Gonçalves-Fleming
Panther Run Elementary — Risa Suarez
Poinciana Elementary — Shannon Stockman
Roosevelt Elementary — Tanya McDowell
Royal Palm Beach High — Shakeica Robinson
South Grade Elementary — Karla De La Cruz
Tradewinds Middle — Christopher Schroeder
Verde K-8 — Kelly Patrick
Waters Edge Elementary — Linden Codling
West Acreage Elementary (opening 2025) — Dwan Moore Ross
About the new high school principals
Michelle Gonçalves-Fleming takes over Palm Beach Gardens High after two years as principal at Royal Palm Beach High School. Gonçalves-Fleming worked previously at Palm Beach Gardens High from 2007 until 2016, first as an assistant principal overseeing curriculum and then as the principal of the summer school system.
She replaces Jay Blavatt as the school's principal after a tumultuous two years. During the 2023-24 school year, three students were arrested and charged with bringing guns to campus in three separate incidents. Gardens High was among the first high schools in Palm Beach County to get metal detectors installed after a successful pilot program in 2023. On his public LinkedIn profile, Blavatt calls himself a "school leader returning to sales," although he does not say where he now works.
ShakeicaRobinson is stepping in as principal at Royal Palm Beach High School to replace Gonçalves-Fleming. Robinson is coming off of two years as principal of Tradewinds Middle in Greenacres. Robinson got her start at Royal Palm Beach High as a math teacher in 2004 and later became an assistant principal at Santaluces High. She earned her doctorate degree in education in March 2023, graduating from Capella University.
Royal Palm Beach High has faced difficulties in the past two years under Gonçalves-Fleming's leadership, including in January 2023 when a math teacher was arrested and charged with bringing a loaded gun onto campus. Robert Krasnicki did not threaten students with the weapon but was arrested by school police after admitting to carrying it in his waistband.
He pleaded guilty to a lesser offense in December.
About the new middle school principals
Bernadette Standish will take the reins at Congress Middle in Boynton Beach this fall after leading Hagen Road Elementary across town since 2019. Standish previously worked at nearby Citrus Cove Elementary and Hidden Oaks (now a K-8 school). She has a doctorate degree in education from Lynn University.
Christopher Schroeder steps into the job left by Shakeica Robinson as principal at Tradewinds Middle in Greenacres. Schroeder comes fresh off of two years as principal at Waters Edge Elementary, in the far-west Boca Raton area. He has worked at half a dozen elementary schools across Palm Beach County since he was hired by the district in 2002.
About the new elementary school principals
Ana Arce-Gonzalez will lead Barton Elementary in Lake Worth Beach this fall after six years at the helm of nearby South Grade Elementary and 10 years as principal of Forest Hill Elementary from 2007 to 2017. Arce-Gonzalez, who is fluent in Spanish, was a finalist in 2017 for the principal of the year award presented by the Dwyer Awards for Excellence in Education.
In a "switch" of principals, outgoing Barton principal Karla De La Cruz is moving to South Grade Elementary to take Arce-Gonzalez's former job.
Valerie Valcourt will take over as principal at Crosspointe Elementary in Boynton Beach this fall. She most recently worked as the director of school improvement, but prior to that assignment Valcourt was an assistant principal at Whispering Pines Elementary in west of Boca Raton. Valcourt previously worked at Crosspointe as the summer school principal in 2021. Former Crosspointe principal Annmarie Dilbert is moving to the district's office to become a director of charter schools.
Christy Aliaga will step into the top job at Everglades Elementary in West Palm Beach this fall after three years as an assistant principal at Hidden Oaks K-8 in Lake Worth Beach and time in the district's central region office as an instructional support team leader. Aliaga has also worked as an ESOL specialist and team leader in the district's multicultural office. Everglades Elementary's previous principal, Dwan Moore Ross, is moving to lead the West Acreage-area elementary when it opens in 2025.
O’Mayra Cruz will become principal at Hagen Road Elementary in Boynton Beach following the departure of principal Bernadette Standish to Congress Middle. Cruz has worked as an assistant principal at Citrus Road Elementary, also in Boynton Beach, since 2019. Previously, she worked in the ESOL department in Brooklyn for the New York City Department of Education.
Risa Suarez will become principal at Panther Run Elementary near Wellington. She won't have to travel far to get to her new office: Suarez has been the assistant principal at Panther Run since 2017. She has previously worked as a first grade teacher, a third grade teacher and a school coordinator. She takes over for former principal Edilia De La Vega, who is moving to become a director of professional standards for the district.
Shannon Stockman will begin as Poinciana STEM Elementary's principal this fall. Stockman will come to the Boynton Beach campus after three years as an assistant principal at Palm Springs Elementary. She has also worked at Lake Worth High School and South Olive, Grove Park, Palmetto, Barton, Cypress Trails elementary schools. She takes over for Tanya McDowell, who is moving to Roosevelt Elementary.
Tanya McDowell will become principal at Roosevelt Elementary in West Palm Beach after four years leading Poinciana STEM Elementary in Boynton Beach. McDowell has taught middle and high school students, as well as worked in leadership at Berkshire Elementary in West Palm Beach and L.C. Swain Middle in Greenacres. Outgoing principal Annick Charlot, who began in the role in 2023, has not said publicly where she's going.
Karla De La Cruz will step in as principal at South Grade Elementary in Lake Worth Beach as Ana Arce-Gonzalez moves to Barton. De La Cruz previously worked as an assistant principal at Barton Elementary for five years. Previously, she taught third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in the dual language program at South Grade from 2007 to 2013.
Kelly Patrick will become principal at Verde K-8 in Boca Raton after five years at the helm of Meadow Park Elementary in West Palm Beach. Patrick taught in New York before moving to Palm Beach County. She taught at Greenacres Elementary and Discovery Key Elementary in the western Lake Worth Beach area from 2005 to 2013.
Linden Codling has been tapped to lead Waters Edge Elementary, in the area west of Boca Raton, after three years at the helm of nearby Verde K-8. Codling has taught all levels of elementary school students since getting her start as a teacher in Hawaii. She's worked at Boca-area Calusa and J.C. Mitchell Elementary schools before moving to Verde in 2015.
Dwan Moore Ross will oversee the final year of construction at the West Acreage area elementary (to be renamed) near the Arden and Westlake developments. The school district broke ground in May on the school campus, which will have space for 950 students and relieve crowding at nearby Binks Forest Elementary in Wellington.
Moore Ross will come to the school with the unique experience of having been the inaugural principal at another district elementary school: She was the first leader of Everglades Elementary in West Palm Beach when it opened in 2010. She's also been a principal at Frontier Elementary in Loxahatchee.
Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today!
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New principals at Palm Beach County schools for 2024-25 school year
