Lake Forest High School Hires Erin Lenart As New Principal

LAKE FOREST, IL — The Lake Forest Community High School District 115 school board on Monday approved a contract with a new principal.

Erin Lenart, principal of Fairfax High School in Fairfax, Virginia, since 2018, will succeed outgoing Lake Forest High School Principal Chala Holland on July 1.

In March, Holland announced plans to depart the district after six years at LFHS to become assistant superintendent of administrative services in Naperville Community Unit School District 203.

Before the unanimous board approval of Lenart's contract, administrators said 27 people had applied for the job, including six out-of-state candidates.

The search firm hired by the district, along with leaders of the district and board, whittled the group down to three finalists, who were interviewed by a group of about 40 stakeholders, including students, faculty, support staff and union representatives, according to incoming Superintendent Matt Montgomery.

Montgomery told the board that community surveys identified three key leadership elements for the next principal — instructional knowledge, communication skills and experience building teams.

"I am confident that this candidate I am recommending to the board tonight is all of these things and more," Montgomery said.

"Lenart has an outstanding track record for inclusive practices, instructional leadership and a deep commitment to social-emotional learning," he added, noting her two post-graduate degrees. "Lenart was a clear choice among the majority of our stakeholders."

Board President Jenny Zinser said district officials had listened closely to the community.

"Lenart has the qualifications to continue Lake Forest High School’s trajectory of growth. She is a builder of results, teams, and community," Zinser said in a statement after the vote. "We cannot wait to see her build upon Lake Forest High School’s tradition of excellence.”

Lenart taught at the high school level in Georgia and Tennessee before joining the suburban Washington, D.C.-area district in 2009. She served as assistant principal, and later principal, at both the high school and the middle school level in Fairfax County.

Patch has requested a copy of the contract approved Monday and will provide an update with its details when received.

Lenart plans to move from the D.C. suburbs to Lake Forest or Lake Bluff with her husband, leaving behind her 23-year-old daughter but bringing her two Jack Russell terriers, she said during a video question-and-answer session broadcast Tuesday.

Lenart said she was drawn to apply for the Lake Forest High School job by the area's small-town feel. She also addressed some of the controversies that emerged during her time at Fairfax High School.

In June 2020, Lenart decided to drop the school's "Rebel Pride" nickname and switch its mascot to the lions in response to concerns it was glorifying the confederacy. It was a culmination of a rebranding that began with the 1985 elimination of the "Johnny Reb" mascot.

"It was, for me, an easy decision, but it was a long process of communication and building a communication timeline," Lenart said. "I was very, very proud of that work. I was really proud of the way the community responded as well."

In September 2020, Lenart's previous school, which had been named after a Confederate soldier, was renamed by its board after Katherine Johnson, the pioneering NASA mathematician who died last year.

Lenart also addressed allegations in an online petition started last fall in an effort to oust her from the position.

Attributed to anonymous high school students, the petition claims that Lenart failed to take action in response to reports about the inappropriate conduct of former Fairfax High School teacher Daniel Kim. The petition also alleges that Lenart did not take appropriate actions in response to racist and homophobic videos posted by students on social media.

"Fairfax County is one of the most wealthy counties in the country, appraised for its highly educational environment," the anonymous petitioner notes, "my parents personally moved [here] because of the word that this is a stellar school, only to be let down by the neglect of abuse, and the turning a blind eye to the racist and discriminatory students and staff, this experience of mine is a tale as old as time, as hundreds of students have stated the same."

Lenart said she appreciated the right of students to voice their frustrations, but privacy rules prevented her from discussing many of the details regarding the issues described in the petition.

"A student was perceiving something to have happened in a way that it didn't. But I think, just knowing, that I really wouldn't still be sitting in this chair if it had at all happened the way that it was posted to have believed to have happened," Lenart said.

"So it's one-sided in that case, and since many, many of those decisions we make, we can't really respond because of confidentiality, you just have to be comfortable, I think, as a leader, in your own skin and knowing that you're doing what's right, and you did the best you could by your community."

Lenart said she looked forward to building on Holland's work establishing and maintaining the LFHS community.

"I would be remiss if I said I wasn't excited about the potential to maybe do some renovations and think about how we do school differently, what those structures would look like, dream about those structures alongside our staff, and our students and parents," she said. "That is exciting to me to think about what's next in learning, but mostly it's about calling it home and being someone that the people there can count on."