You don’t see this every day: Gateway High principal James Long takes a “spur of the moment” lap through the Class of 2026 at the May 21 graduation ceremony. (Photo/Osceola County School District)
With Gateway High School Principal James Long officially retiring at the end of this month, his last graduating class gave him one heck of a sendoff at their commencement ceremony May 21.
It isn’t every day that the students, with the approval of the principal, break out into song at graduation, but they did just that—and then chanted his name in tribute of culminating his nearly 25-year education career.
Long, who led GHS for eight years, came from Colorado to lead the school—and to ask anyone with a Panther ID, the school is better off for it. Always humble, always approachable and with an attitude more like your neighbor than a larger-than-life alpha-male figure many principals take on, Long told many that he wasn’t Dr. Long, or Principal Long; he was just Mr. Long, or James.
“I’m not a doctor of anything, just a principal who cares about his community,” he said after Gateway earned an “A” school grade in 2025.
It’s clear the Kissimmee school has achieved much since Long came from out west in March of 2018 to interview for the job—then asked him to take over the next month rather than waiting for the new school season.
Fast forward to graduation, when he joined the seniors broke into a clearly choreographed version of “Another Day of Sun”, the opening song from the movie La La Land. School Superintendent Dr. Mark Shanoff and other administrators couldn’t help but join in, and Long leapt off the stage and ran up the aisle and back among those students he connected with. Moments later he tearfully concluded the ceremony to chants of “Mr. Long! Mr. Long!”
“Once people found out it’s my last year, the seniors were motivated to do something,” he said. “The running through the students, that was a spur of the moment thing.”
And it wasn’t even the best part of it.
“One of my sons flew in (from Texas) to be a part of my last commencement,” he said. “I can’t put into words what that meant.”
Long’s first calling wasn’t a school campus but sports arenas as a reporter in Denver and Seattle, before shifting careers— and took his innate ability to connect with people with him.
“I loved being a reporter, in Seattle I started helping a school with its student newspaper, and it got me thinking,” he said, noting later got him acting to become a language arts and biology teacher, then an administrator.
“Being a high school principal is about building and maintaining culture and those relationships. The baseline is that you’re working with teenagers. Show them you’re the person who will take time for them. It’s really important to have that ability to connect with kids.”
Nicole Mehit teaches English and Student Senate at Gateway, and said Long has connected with his teachers and staff in the same way as the students.
“Working with him has really put the energy back in my teaching career, I’ve never felt ‘less than’,” she said. “Mr. Long’s foundation has always been about the kids. Test scores and achievement were important but he made sure his students left with more, with a path and know they were loved along the way.
“He’s made a connection I’ve never seen a principal have, He’s 100 percent engaged with those kids. When they leave, they’re well-rounded and molded into amazing adults to serve our community so well. Every student who walked through those halls felt like they owned a piece of Gateway. That’s the culture he built, having students run to him to tell them about their day or their games. I can’t explain it other than that he was just … Mr. Long.”
Travis James is Gateway’s longtime athletic director and said Long was one of his biggest supporters in everything he did.
“He’s always gone above and beyond for our student-athletes. Replacing him won’t be easy, and honestly, it’s a little intimidating,” James said. “I have the utmost respect for him. One thing that will always stay with me is how he put family first. He supported me as a father before anything else, even before my role as his AD. That’s hard to find in a leader —someone who genuinely cares about you as a person, not just as an employee.”
Superintendent Shanoff said Long represents “everything great” about the high school principal position.
“He’s been a champion for the student experience, creating community, being authentic, and holding everyone to a universally high standard around what it means to be a Gateway Panther. His legacy will permeate the halls and classrooms of Gateway long after his retirement.”
It was a retirement that Long said he’d contemplated for about a year, and said he thought long and hard before finalizing the decision this past fall.
“I love what I do, but it’s becoming harder to do what I love,” he said. “(Former Harmony High principal) Jim Hickey and I were close. After he retired (last year), I saw him two or three weeks later and he looked like a different person.”
But, he and his wife Cynthia are “staying home.”
“I’m going to spend some time back in Colorado and with my sons in Texas, and maybe travel a bit, but we have no big plans to leave the area,” he said. We love being near Disney and the weather.”
