A month after its previous principal was removed amid a flap over rising for the national anthem, Liberty High learned Monday that its new leader is Brandon Levatino, the longtime principal of Northeast High School in Pride.

Levatinos selection as Liberty High principal was announced to the school Monday morning, and he is scheduled to take over the job Dec. 7. He was one of six finalists, said Taylor Gast, a spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system.

Shawona Ross, an assistant principal who has been serving this past month as Libertys acting principal, will replace Levatino at Northeast High, Gast said.

Barely two years after taking over a prominent Baton Rouge public high school, Liberty High Principal Rob Howle is being replaced and a search

Levatino also informed Northeast High faculty and staff of his move to Liberty on Monday morning. Later that day, he sent a letter parents and students.

"The last eight years have been some of the best years of my career," Levatino writes. "I can't begin to thank this community enough for trusting me to lead your school. While I may be leaving, a piece of my heart will always live in Viking Country."

Rob Howle was removed as Liberty Highs principal on Oct. 27, 12 days after he was placed on leave when a text message became public in which he suggested football players who don't stand for the national anthem shouldn't be on the team. The national anthem has been a flashpoint nationwide since football player Colin Kaepernick knelt during a 2016 playing of the anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice.

The text prompted an internal investigation. School officials have not shared the conclusions of that inquiry. Liberty High parent Corey Delahoussaye told The Advocate that he spoke with Interim Superintendent Adam Smith during the investigation. He said they spoke not just about the football incident, but also about what Delahoussaye views as Howle's autocratic management style and role in the departure ofdozens of staff members during Howles two-year tenure as principal of the prominent Baton Rouge magnet school.

Howle has been reassigned to the districts Transportation Department as a principal on assignment for the remainder of the school year.

From sports jerseys to signs to outdoor benches, renaming Lee High to Liberty High will take several months to complete, with the East Baton R

Liberty High was renamed from Lee High in July in the wake of protests across the country that targeted symbols of the Confederacy. Lee High opened in 1959 as Robert E. Lee High School, named after the Confederate general.

Levatino, a career educator with the school system, was a social studies teacher as well as athletic director at Lee High when it was still a neighborhood high school. During his time there, he helped to guide students who successfully lobbied the parish School Board in 2008 to rebuild the dilapidated school, which it did in 2016.

Liberty, home to nearly 1,200 students, has about three times as many students as Northeast. Northeast is also the only rural high school in an otherwise urban and suburban school district. In 2017, Levatino was named principal of the year for high schools in the parish.

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Northeast High Principal to take over Liberty High, month after its principal was removed - The Advocate