On September 12, 2005, Ms. Millie Fornell, holding back tears, spoke of her departure as our principal. Ms. Fornell has been a part of Varela’s history since before it opened in 2000. She has been the first and only principal of Felix Varela High School.

Ms Fornell was recently hired to take over the job as Region 6 Director of Curriculum. Her appointment was confirmed Wednesday September 7, 2005, by a school board vote. “The job is basically seen as a promotion as well as an opportunity to look at and impact more kids. There are many bittersweet and mixed emotions about it but Varela is my home, and I may have a lot of colleagues at my new job but my true friends are here and leaving the kids is very difficult,’ said Ms. Fornell.

Ms. Fornell was born in Cuba in 1955, raised as an only child where she lived until the age of 13. She arrived in the United States in 1968. She received her Bachelor and Masters Degrees in Math and began teaching at McMillan Junior High School. After several years teaching math, she became an assistant principal at Glades Middle. From there, she became the principal at both Palmetto Middle and Palmetto High School before opening Varela. As a child Ms. Fornell’s desire was to be a teacher, “I had a blackboard when I was younger and would play school. How nerdy was that?” she said.

It is also a bit of a reward for Ms. Fornell to continue working with Region 6 considering Varela is a part of Region 6 itself. “I respect the principals [of Region 6] and superintendent; the superintendent has been my boss and is very innovative and a good person to work with,” said Ms Fornell.

Tears began to swell in Ms Fornell’s eyes as the question of the sweetest gesture made by students was asked. “There are so many, but for example, on Friday afternoon, two Juniors left a card for me asking that I come back for the Ring Ceremony and last Wednesday a student hugged me saying, ‘You’re leaving…what’s going to become of me?’ There are just countless moments everywhere.”

Ms. Fornell hopes that she will continue to be invited to visit Varela and continue to “See kids and try to remember what it was like to be in those shoes, because adults forget a lot about what it was like; every single one of us was there at one point and everyone is to be treated with the respect that they deserve.” For the students who would like to stay in contact with Ms. Fornell, her e-mail address is mfornell@dadeschools.net.

Our new principal, announced September 16, Ms. Connie Navarro, is known by some teachers here at Varela and is expected to be a smooth transition from Ms. Fornell.

Ms. Navarro began her career as a math teacher and then spent ten years as an assistant principal at Sunset. Most recently, she worked at Campbell Drive Middle as their principal for three years. She was appointed to Varela by the Region 6 Superintendent Neyda Navarro (no relation) as our new principal.

According to Ms. Laroche, Ms. Navarro is good with kids as well as adults, promotes creativity and is very similar to Ms. Fornell. Ms. Navarro will be promoting unity and community, and bringing people together to guide us through.

“She’s a suitable successor for Ms. Fornell,” said Mr. Oehm. Ms. Navarro is here to support the “A” attitude and will continue the year with the ideal that it is an “observational year” in relation to discipline and policy problems.

“If something isn’t broken, don’t fix it,” she said.