After seven years of guiding Challenger Elementary School students through kindergarten registration, first days of school, and the move to middle school, Principal Robin Earl is taking on a new challenge — serving as planning principal for the temporarily named Elementary 15, set to open on the Sammamish Plateau in September 2010.

Earl will continue to serve Challenger until June 30.

While she is excited about the new opportunities, the decision to leave was bittersweet.

“I love Challenger, and I would never seek to leave it,” she said. “But I realized that this is an opportunity, and the district thought I might have skills that would be helpful for opening up a new school. It was a very hard decision that took a lot of thought.”

As planning principal at E15, Earl will oversee a handful of special projects for the district, assist in planning, and have a hand in hiring a core team of “certified staff”: parents and other staff members who will develop a vision for what the new school will look like, its mission, and how to achieve those two. The group will be similar to a site council, she said.

“We’ll get to create the culture we dream about seeing in schools,” Earl said.

When the school finally opens, Earl will drop the “planning” in her title, and take over the duties of a principal.

As for goals and plans at E15, she doesn’t need to look very far for inspiration.

“I so fully believe in what all the schools in the Issaquah School District are doing in meeting the needs of the students, and supporting them as they grow stronger,” she said. “Issaquah is already so strong in that, I’m just going to continue the mission that’s already set, that works.”

But in the meantime, her focus will be 100 percent on Challenger. Aside from attending the groundbreaking ceremony and other small events, Earl won’t be involved with E15 until she finishes her last day at Challenger.

School district officials hope to find a new principal for Challenger by the end of the month, and are asking for parent help in finding that person. An online survey was issued at the beginning of the week asking parents what characteristics they’d like to see in the new principal, and what the transitional period should look like, among other things. The survey closes Monday, March 9.

While Earl has no input on hiring the new principal, she said one of the things that helped her most when she started at Challenger was the guidance of the former principal in showing her the culture of the school, and inviting her to meetings. She said she fully intends to offer that to whoever the district selects.

Until then, she will enjoy her last few months at Challenger, and said that the experience working there has been incredible.

“I’ve been blessed to work with an incredible, positive and creative staff that truly cares for the students, and I have loved coming to work every day because of that,” she said. “As a team, they are outstanding. The strength of that team will keep going after I leave, and their new principal will just make it stronger.”