Twelve schools in Federal Way will have new principals at the helm next fall.

Nautilus Elementary will be getting a new principal. Currently, Patty Elmer is the interim principal, but come next fall, Stacy Lucas will be the principal at the K-8 school. Lucas is coming from Illahee Middle School. She has been at Illahee since 2003. Elmer, who has been the Sequoyah Middle school assistant principal as well as the interim principal at Nautilus, will become the principal at Lake Grove Elementary, taking over for Kristi White. White is moving over to Silver Lake Elementary, taking over for Michael Swartz, who in turn is going over to Wildwood Elementary.

Alex Clausen will be taking Elmer’s position as assistant principal at Sequoyah. In the past, Clausen was a dean at the school and has been filling the position of assistant principal since Elmer moved to fill the interim position as Nautilus’s principal.

Jason Smith, who has been at Adelaide Elementary since 2006, will be moving over to Valhalla Middle School, taking over for Marie Verhaar, who has been there for six years.

Keith Wheeler, current principal of the Student of Global Leadership academy at Todd Beamer High School, will become the assistant principal at Federal Way High School. He will fill Jerry Warren’s spot. Warren will be the new principal at Illahee.

Randy Kaczor, who in the past has been principal at Federal Way High School, Sacajawea and Illahee middle schools, will become the new principal at Todd Beamer High School, taking over for Liz Drake, who came onboard in 2008.

The number of changes among principals is not typical, said district spokeswoman Diane Turner.

“It’s an opportunity to match principal strength with school needs,” Turner said.

New to the district is James Crawford, who will be the assistant principal at Kilo Middle School next year.

There are also openings for principals at Thomas Jefferson High School and at Adelaide Elementary School. Both of those openings have been posted and are in the process of being filled.

The district hopes to have the Adelaide position filled by the first of June, and the TJHS position filled by the end of next week. The TJHS position was vacated after Dr. Mark Marshall left the position earlier this month to go to the Eastside Union School District in Lancaster, Calif. He had been principal since 2005. Grant Hosford will serve as interim principal at TJHS for the remainder of the school year.