Amber Saunders is Jupiter High School’s (JHS) new principal, replacing former principal Dr. Colleen Iannitti who was active from 2016 to 2025. Saunders was the previous principal at Independence Middle School (IMS). 

“There’s lots of teachers in my family, so I think that I always knew that I had a knack with kids and loved being around them,” Amber Saunders, JHS principal, said. “So [teaching] just seemed like a natural thing for me to go into, Jupiter was my first teaching job ever.”

Saunders grew up in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens. Graduating from The University of Florida in 2006, and in the following year started teaching at JHS, where she was an English teacher for nine years, and an assistant principal for six.

“I love Jupiter High School, it has felt like a homecoming of sorts,” Saunders said. “The kids have been so kind and the faculty has been so welcoming, I could not have asked for a better return to Jupiter.”

It was such a change in pace for Saunders after transferring from being the principal of IMS, a smaller school with only around 1100 students, to JHS, with around 3200 students and a huge campus.

“The volume of everything is a lot, the speed of the day is fast, but at the bottom of it,…  I still try to get into the classrooms as much as I can and try to just make sure that I’m doing the best I can to reach the whole school,” Saunders said. “It feels very strange to be in a building that feels so familiar, doing a totally different job than I did before.”

Saunders said that she had no clue that she would be back here, but when Dr.Ianitti left she saw that opportunity, and took it. She is glad everything worked out the way it did. 

“I think the student success is the greatest reward,” Saunders said.

Saunders wants to make sure this campus looks and feels good to not only her, but to the students and staff. She is also always trying to help and level up in academics, athletics and programs such as fine arts. 

With her outlook on life, Saunders is constantly trying to find ways to help everybody on campus be happier and more positive each day.

“High school goes by really fast, so, from the beginning, try something new, get involved with something that is totally weird to you, or something that you’ve always been interested in,” Saunders said.