Assistant principal Brandi Heckert will be carrying out her administrative role in a different school next year, opening up a spot for a principal intern.

Heckert, who has worked at Whitman for the past four years, doesn’t know where she is being moved to, but can apply to certain schools, she said.

Karen Bryant, assistant principal at Seneca Valley High School, will be the principal intern next year. Bryant will gradually assume the responsibility as principal at Whitman just as a student teacher does in the classroom, principal Alan Goodwin said.

Bryant is coming to Whitman next year because Goodwin was selected by the county to be a mentor for interning principals. With an extra administrator in the building, Heckert was randomly chosen to leave. The news came as a surprise to both Goodwin and Heckert, they said.

Although she is sad to leave, Heckert will embrace the change and welcome the new opportunity.

“I have an aspiration to become a principal, so the more experiences I have, the better,” she said. In order for Heckert to become a principal, she would first have to intern at a school – just as Bryant will next year at Whitman.

Both students and staff will miss Heckert’s presence at the school.

“Ms. Heckert would always help me solve my problems, no matter what they were,” junior Lino Nuñez del Arco said.

Despite her departure, Goodwin is optimistic about the future.

“I like to think that the new administrator will do just as good a job as Heckert next year,” Goodwin said. “The one main difference next year is that Bryant will take over as the principal for six weeks with me out of the building.”

During those six weeks, which will likely fall sometime during January-February, MCPS will relocate Goodwin to a different school where he will act as an assistant principal. Goodwin will return after that time.

“I’ll miss being here, but we’ll be alright,” he said.