Satellite High assistant principal Ilene Herr glances at the clock every few minutes while sitting at her office desk.
Herr does this as she tells a story about the time her daughter-in-law came to visit her at school, and had a sudden inspiration about what to give Herr for a retirement gift later this year, when she leaves the school after 28 years.
“She said, ‘I’m going to have a bell installed in your house and every 48 minutes you can run outside and make sure everyone’s OK.’”
Herr, 66, has been a fixture at Satellite since 1990, when she started as a guidance counselor, later became a dean and then assistant principal.
She isn’t the only long-time SHS administrator retiring this year. Principal Mark Elliott, who has held his position for 20 years, is retiring as well. So is Athletic Director Linda Anderson, who also been in her job for 20 years.
Elliott started his career in education as a 22-year-old first-time teacher at Satellite in 1984. He transferred two years later, and returned to be principal in 1998. Elliot said he’s hired 98 percent of the staff at the school, and will especially miss his partnership with Herr.
“She and I and the group, we just kind of worked together and time flew by and next thing you know, we are where we are,” he said. “I told her that she should stay and she said, ‘I’m not training another principal’ – and laughed.”
Herr, for her part, said she and Elliott decided to retire together because neither of them wanted to work with someone new.
Herr and Elliott both came to Satellite when it served only grades 10-12. Ninth-graders at the time went next door to what is now Delaura Middle School.
The pair went on to shepherd Satellite through some of the biggest changes in school history. The most notable, as they both remember, was when the school’s boundaries were expanded inland to serve students from the growing communities of Suntree and Viera. By 2005, the school’s enrollment had swelled to a peak of 2,200 students.
“We had to make a bus loop. We didn’t even know what a bus loop was,” Herr said. “We had 31 portables. We had to bring in portable bathrooms.”
Elliott notes that the flipside of that challenge came in 2008 when Viera High School opened and the mainland students were re-districted to the new facility.
Satellite’s student population dropped back down to 1,250 over the next two years, and some 50 teachers had to leave the school.
Satellite’s 47-year-old campus got a $35 million facelift in 2009, which brought the school to where it is today, a modern campus with 1,300 students.
“In the long run we have a beautiful 9-12 high school with fantastic, the best, teachers,” Elliott said. “These people are like family.”
Years ago, he encouraged Herr to move into administration and advance to more challenging positions.
“I will tell you she is one of the finest educators I’ve ever worked with … her dedication, her work ethic and her knowledge,” Elliott said.
Herr decided to stay at Satellite despite being asked to move to other schools and get on track to also become a principal. “It was a very big, controversial thing because (the district) didn’t want you to stay at the same school,” Herr said. “They wanted you to have different kinds of experiences.”
She felt like the first part of her career, working at a vocational school in upstate New York, was enough variety. She wanted to stay put at Satellite, where she loved the community, the staff, the students, and the parents she worked with.
Staying at Satellite also kept her closer to her own elderly parents, whom she cared for.
Both Herr and Elliott say it’s unusual for administrators to stay at one school as long as they have.
School Board member Tina Descovich also said it’s unique. She graduated from Satellite High in 1992 and remembers both Herr and Anderson, who was a teacher at that point. “They’ve been in those positions for a very long time,” Descovich said. “It’s going to be a big change.” She said the school board hopes to have a new principal in place by the first of May, and a replacement for Herr soon after.
She thanked all three retiring Satellite administrators for their years of dedication. “We are grateful for their service and wish them well in retirement, and are looking forward to exciting things in the future for the whole community,” Descovich said.
Elliott, 56, and his wife Erica, a fourth-grade teacher at Quest Elementary in Melbourne, have big plans for retirement. “We’re taking off in our motor home and we’re heading out,” he said.
They plan to trek across the Middle West and northern United States, take a cruise out of Alaska, and then make their way back across the country through places like Lake Tahoe, Colorado and the Grand Canyon. They intend to visit family along the way and evaluate where they might move next.
Herr said she isn’t worried about a replacement being able to fill her shoes.
“If somebody dropped in from space they could probably just open a file and know exactly what to do,” she said, waving an arm around her perfectly organized office.
She plans to become more involved at the Sunday school at her synagogue, where she is principal, and make frequent trips to New York to see Broadway shows. But beyond that, she isn’t sure how she’ll fill her newfound free time.
