Waterford — The next principal at Great Neck Elementary School will lead the first town-run pre-kindergarten program here since the magnet Friendship School opened.

With the retirement of Pat Fedor, who will leave the district this year after a four-decade career in teaching, Great Neck will pass into the hands of Billie Shea, the principal of the Stanton Network Elementary School in Norwich, Waterford school officials announced Friday.

Shea will take over at Great Neck, seven years after it opened in a brand-new building as part of the consolidation of Waterford’s elementary schools in 2010.

It also will be the first year that a Waterford elementary school will host a pre-kindergarten program since the opening of the magnet Friendship School, which until the 2017-18 school year will have served as the town’s federally mandated pre-kindergarten program.

Waterford’s school board, burdened by cuts in state education aid and worried about the threat of even bigger cuts to come, announced in July that it would pull out of the decadelong agreement with New London’s school district to fund the Friendship School.

Now, federally mandated to provide a free pre-kindergarten option for 3- and 4-year-old children with special needs, Waterford school officials plan to open two pre-kindergarten classes at Great Neck.

And Shea, who has led the Stanton School for four years, will oversee it.

Waterford Superintendent Thomas Giard said the district received 64 applications for the job, and interviewed 15 people.

“We were thrilled with the response that we got,” Giard said.

Shea has a master’s degree in elementary education from Sacred Heart University and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Connecticut. She is a worthy successor to Fedor, who started her career as a teacher in Groton and was the principal of Waterford’s Southwest Elementary School before it closed, Giard said.

“She’s done a marvelous job ... and has done great things for kids and staff,” he said. “She’s been a real leader.”

Shea started working at the Stanton School as a literacy specialist, when the school was labeled “low performing.” As principal, she led a turnaround effort to improve the school’s academic standards, and by last year state Education Commissioner Dianne Wentzell was calling Stanton "one of the clear bright spots" for improvement in education.

Throughout the turnaround process, Shea was commended for involving the school’s whole staff in improving students' performance and attendance.

“She’s the best model of the shared leadership model,” Norwich schools Superintendent Abby Dolliver said Friday.

Shea’s departure would be a tough loss for the district, Dolliver added.

“It is a hard thing, but it’s the right thing if it’s the right thing for her,” she said.

Waterford is accepting applications now for pre-kindergarten students with special needs to join one class for 3-year-olds and another for 4-year-olds. It soon will hold a lottery to choose non-special needs students to fill the rest of the available slots.

After the Waterford Board of Education announced that it would end the 11-year agreement with New London to help fund The Friendship School, LEARN, the organization that runs the school, has opened the admissions process to all towns, and officials said some parents of pre-kindergarten students may soon have to pay tuition for their children to attend next year.

Families from both Waterford and New London still are able to apply and enter a lottery for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten spots at the school.

The districts still will be obligated under federal and state law to cover the tuition cost of any kindergarten student age 5 or older who is accepted to the school, as well as all their students’ special education costs.

m.shanahan@theday.com