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Pierce Middle Principal Will Lead Leto High

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By COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR

cpastor@tampatrib.com

Published: February 11, 2009

TOWN 'N COUNTRY - After almost 18 years at Pierce Middle School, Principal Victor Fernandez is leaving for high school.

He will take over at Leto in April, putting him in charge once again of many of the students he saw through Pierce. Pierce is about a mile from Leto and feeds into the high school.

"I'm very excited," said Fernandez, 53, "but at the same time, it is kind of hard to break away from a great faculty we've put together."

Fernandez started his teaching career as an intern at Pierce before taking his first fulltime job with the Hillsborough County school district's bilingual program in 1980.

The next year he taught at Young Middle, before moving to Pierce as a teacher in 1982. He stayed two years and then transferred to Gaither, where he taught for nine years. He returned to Pierce as its assistant principal in 1993. He became principal in 1999.

The school board named him Leto's principal on Jan. 27. He will replace Dave Brown, who is leaving to open Strawberry Crest High School in Plant City.

He loves the family atmosphere at Pierce and the close-knit staff. The faculty takes pride in the accomplishments of the students, and the staff comes together annually to pitch in on the community spaghetti dinner.

The day after his appointment, he visited Leto and met with the teachers. Everyone was welcoming, and former students he saw in the halls seemed excited he was coming.

"I feel very good about that," Fernandez said.

His priorities at Leto will be to increase involvement from parents and businesses. Parent support is vital to a school, Fernandez said.

His appointment coincided with two other administrative changes at area schools. The board on Jan. 27 also named George Fekete principal at Gaither High School and Brent McBrien principal of Davidsen Middle.
Fekete is the assistant principal at Hillsborough High. He has worked for the district since 1986, starting as a teacher at Armwood High. He entered administration in 1995 as assistant principal at Oak Grove Middle. He has also been an assistant principal at Brandon High and Tampa Bay Technical High School before moving to Hillsborough in 2005.

He will start at Gaither in April when Brenda Grasso heads to Steinbrenner High, which is opening in August.

McBrien comes from Webb Middle, where he has been principal since 2007. He has worked for the district since 1993, first teaching at Sulphur Springs Elementary and later Adams Middle and Coleman Middle. In 2000, he moved to Leto as its assistant principal and worked there for seven years. His appointment was effective Monday.

He replaced Michael Miranda, who is now principal at Progress Village Middle Magnet School.

Reporter Courtney Cairns Pastor can be reached at (813) 865-1503.

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