Gainesville High announces new principal

GAINESVILLE - A veteran educator from Jacksonville,Florida was announced Thursday as the new principal for Gainesville High School.

"We had a national search and this gentleman emerged from 86 candidates as the top choice," School Superintendent Dr. Steve Ballowe said.

Michael Kemp leaves his post as principal of Englewood High School in Jacksonville, a school with 2028 students.
"There is a sense of pride and tradition here that I haven't been able to find at other places," Kemp said.

Kemp arrives with 10 years as a high school and middle school administrator and broad experience dealing with a diverse student population.
"At my last school we had 52 countries and 47 languages at one center, so when you talk about diversity, we had the entire world," Kemp said.

The 39-year-old Kemp replaces David Shumake who moves up to become assistant superintendent for instruction.
Shumake said he plans to prepare the system for teaching and testing that should easily meet federal 'No Child left Behind' guidelines with students in all grades to get a pre-test and a post test.

"We going to be aligning all curriculum K-12, with pre-test, post tests standards," Shumake said.

Shumake added the new testing procedure will more accurately assess student needs and measure learning ability.