As a new year commences, Varela welcomes new faces, not just in its student body, but also in its administration.

Ms. Connie Navarro, last year’s principal, fell ill during this past summer and as a consequence Miami-Dade County Public Schools appointed a temporary principal, Ms. Nery Fins, until Ms. Navarro who is now home, recuperating, is able to come back

Ms. Fin’s previous position of assistant principal for curriculum was taken over by John Galardi who is now in charge of the master schedule. He decides what subject each teacher will teach, what period certain classes are given, what classes are offered as electives, and he assigns students their schedules to meet their graduation requirements.

A challenge this year has been the over flow of new students. Varela was expecting 2,850 students, but as of the second week of school there was a little over 3,000. New teachers are being hired in order to meet the class size requirement, which limits 25 students to every core class.

Some known faces have also left the school; Mr. Jorge Nunez left Varela for the charter school system, bringing his "bromance" with Mr. Galardi to an end. This year, the school has welcomed three new female assistant principals: Ms. Tatiana de Miranda, Ms. Wendy Barnett, and Ms. Gale Cunningham.

"They’re great ladies," said Ms. Fins

Ms. de Miranda comes from the Doral area. She oversees eleventh grade. Ms. Barnett oversees tenth grade.

"She is the rookie assistant principal," said Ms. Fins.

Before becoming a Viper, Ms. Barnett was at Killian Senior High School where she taught language arts to ninth graders.

"I’ve taught for seven years and then I became the test chair at Killian," said Ms. Barnett. "Everyone here is very nice, the students are great and the faculty and staff are wonderful."

Ms. Cunningham came from Riviera Middle School where she was an assistant principal. She currently oversees ninth grade.

"I love [Varela], I’ve landed well," said Ms. Cunningham.

Her passion for education began when she was a young girl.

"I chose this career, because it was something I wanted to do in order to help others, not only children, but adults, alike," she said.

She started out as an Exceptional Student Education (ESE) teacher.

"One of the reasons behind it was because I had a big brother who had Down Syndrome and he was born in an era where education wasn’t something that was offered to him, so I figured if he couldn’t have it that I could at least offer what I could give to others."

Among other interesting facts, Ms. Cunningham has collected shoes for 20 years.

"I would go into a store to buy a blouse and come out with shoes," she said.

She currently has 250 pairs of shoes, but is about to give a lot of them away to a consignment store.

Not many changes are being applied this year that were not planned during the summer with Ms. Navarro, so everything is being continued according to plan. Varela’s new school theme is, "imagine, believe, and achieve."

"We just continued the same vision, making Varela excellent as it has always been," said Ms. Fins.