By Summer Livengood and Vivienne Wellet 

Dr. Larry Schmiegel is our new principal for Key West High School. Principal Schmiegel has already made great improvements and plans on making more great decisions to make the school a better educational place. When we asked, what’s the difference between Key West High and his school before, he said “ It is a bigger job, working with high schoolers now than before since he was working with elementary school. It’s also a bigger campus, almost 3 times bigger than the elementary school.” When we asked how he saw the school and himself in 5 years. He replied with “ I see it thriving, I see a lot of opportunities.

I love coming to the school everyday, I like that the school is based on tradition but also gives us an opportunity to work on things that aren’t working so well. I’ve always been hungry , not physically, but educationally. I Want to learn something new, work on something new, and to work outside of the box. I see in 5 years the opportunities and the challenges. Also opening up new positions that are coming for example a graduation coach not to plan but to help kids get to that stage in their life.” 

We asked how he got into the administration process, He said, “It started as an incident when my friend who was a principal asked me to come teach at the school. I said yes, a couple months later she caught pneumonia and was out for a while. She asked Dr. Schmiegel to take the job. I didn’t know why she asked me when there were others that were qualified to do the job. She said I know that you would make the same decisions I would if I was there. That’s how it got started and then I went to  school to get the degrees I needed to become an administrator.”When we asked Principal Schmiegel,” What are you looking forward to in the school year and what do you think are going to be the biggest challenges? He replied with “  I’m looking forward to just being in a school that has lots of energy, from both teachers and students. Some big challenges are trying to keep the violence and keep rules in order without pointing fingers. 

So I think that could be tricky trying to navigate through that. It is much easier in a smaller building with less students and you know all the teachers and parents. Know where in a bigger school with more students. Also trying to get students back into a routine since we were on an A/B schedule.  For our last question we asked a question to get to know him as a human. What are your hobbies outside of school? “ I love boating, I’m not a pro boater but whenever I have time I love going on the boat.” said Principle Schmiegel. We thank you for being the new Principal and we hope to see great changes to see our school become better.