Flathead High Principal, Former Fair-Mont-Egan Superintendent Among Finalists for Whitefish Superintendent Job
The three finalists will go through an interview process and community “meet and greets” before the board makes a final decision on the district’s next top administrator. It intends to make its choice March 5.
By Mariah Thomas
Flathead High School’s principal and the former superintendent of Fair-Mont-Egan rose to the top of the stack of applicants to be Whitefish School District’s next superintendent. A third candidate, from Michigan, rounds out the finalists for the role.
Dave Means, Whitefish’s current superintendent, has held the position for five years and announced his retirement in November. The finalists to take over the job were selected from a pool of 19 applicants.
Michele Paine has served as the principal of Flathead High School since 2017. She has spent most of her career in Kalispell Public Schools, much of it at the high school level. Paine has worked in roles as a reading specialist, K-12 language arts facilitator and as Flathead High’s assistant principal. She was tapped to be the high school’s interim principal in 2017, and was offered the full-time role in 2018.
Brandy Carlenzoni most recently served as the superintendent of Fair-Mont-Egan, a rural district on the Flathead Valley’s east side. She resigned from that position — which she held for three years — ahead of the 2025-2026 academic year. While at Fair-Mont-Egan, Carlenzoni led the district as it adopted a four-day school week. Last year, Carlenzoni was also tapped as a finalist for the superintendent role at Somers Lakeside. Prior to her role as Fair-Mont-Egan’s superintendent, Carlenzoni spent 20 years in roles from teacher to vice principal at Visions in Education Charter School.
Jennifer Fee, the third finalist, currently works as Kent Intermediate School District’s assistant superintendent for instructional services — a role she has held for about two years. The Kent Intermediate School District, located in Grand Rapids, Mich., serves 20 public school districts, Christian and Catholic schools and Public School Academies that comprise more than 100,000 students in grades K-12. Prior to Fee’s time at the Kent Intermediate School District, she served in roles as a superintendent, assistant superintendent and principal in a pair of public school districts, also located in Grand Rapids.
As finalists, Carlenzoni, Fee and Paine will have a chance to tour the district’s schools, and meet with administrators, staff and community members on March 4 and 5, according to Shar Johns, a consultant with the firm leading the district’s superintendent search.
All three candidates will also go through interviews with the school board on those days, per a press release from the Whitefish School District. Interviews will take place in a public meeting of the school board.
Schedules for those two days have yet to be finalized, Johns said.
The board will make its deliberations and intends to select its next superintendent March 5, the district’s press release stated.