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Reform Plan’s View: Principals Are Key
by Allan Appel | Apr 30, 2009 3:22 pm
(4) Comments | Commenting has been closed | E-mail the Author
Posted to: Schools
As school leaders revealed the outline of a three-tiered reform plan, this man had a question: What would keep teachers from fleeing schools on the precipice of a shutdown?
At Monday night’s Board of Education meeting, schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo offered Dimitri Shevchenko in effect a one-word answer: leadership.
“A good principal, a good school leader will have the loyalty of his or her teachers,” said Mayo. “They’ll know how to support you to get the job done.”
In fact, highly motivated and skillful leaders, teachers and principals, emerged as the core means to achieve the BOE’s ambitious goals of turning the NHPS into what Mayo termed “the best urban school district in the nation.”
Shevchenko is a middle-school language arts instructor. He was one of some dozen teachers and administrators who attended the BOE’s regular Monday night meeting to get a preview on what might be their future. Mayo and Mayor John DeStefano revealed the broad outlines of an upcoming school reform plan.
The basic measure of what the system must accomplish is to cut dropouts drastically and raise the city’s test scores by 20 points in all schools.
Part of the new plan’s approach: Divide schools into three tiers. Principals at top-performing schools will get more freedom to hire and fire teachers and set the school day’s hours. Lowest-performing schools might be shut down and converted to charters.
Schevchenko, who is in his first year at Fair Haven K-8 School, agreed with Mayo about the influence of strong principals. His previous four years of teaching were at the Nathan Hale School. When its principal, Kim Johnsky, moved to Fair Haven Middle, Schenchenko found a way to follow.
“She really knows how to work with her staff, how to talk to us, and support us. The superintendent is right. That is everything.”
Fair Haven, far from being a troubled school, is one of the system’s rising stars.
Michael Nast, a BOE member and a former principal and school superintendent (pictured in back with the mayor and fellow BOE member Dr. M. Ann Levett), concurred on the key role of principals. But he wondered about leadership turnover. “If you get the infrastructure in place, and then the principal leaves, then what?”
Mayo spoke of the difficulty in attracting top administrative talent.
Nast said frequent turnover, however, is not that unusual in urban schools. In his view, New Haven’s rate is similar to other districts.
Mayo said that despite extensive advertising for new candidates as principals and administrators, only 15 people from outside the system have applied thus far. “We had near 80 in the previous year,” he said.
Although still in its bare-bones form, the six-to-eight year reform strategy envisions a hierarchy of schools, with the top performers, or tier one schools, being increasingly autonomous and led by their high-performing principals. Tier two, a majority of the schools, will receive lots of central office help to rise to the more autonomous level of tier one. The third-tier schools will face dramatic turnaround strategies, and if those fail, shut down and reconfiguration, potentially, as city-run charters.
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Comments
posted by: Vitar Simpson on April 30, 2009 4:49pm
Can anyone answer why, and/or how, does turning a school into a charter make it a better school? If it’s a city run charter, who will be in charge?
posted by: sad girl on April 30, 2009 7:29pm
sigh. the leadership at my school causes me concern, stress and the like daily. maybe dr. mayo will someday stop playing favorites and allow ALL nhps schools the opportunity to have QUALITY leadership, like that of Ms. Johnsky. sigh.
posted by: JOSIAHBROWNFORMAYOR on May 1, 2009 8:25pm
Guess what guys, if its city run, its not a charter.
We are a ship without a rudder. Lets hire yet another group of consultants to tell us how to run our school district or do a poor job of cribbing someone else’s ideas on how to reform or why not both its worked so well for us in the past.
What are we getting for our quarter of a million dollars a year?
Help/support from central office? Central office has failed us for the past two decades. I got an idea, lets shut down central office and sell Meadow St. to some FOJs. Might help close the budget gap.
posted by: teachergal on May 9, 2009 11:38am
Mr. Vitar…a great, young, motivated teacher, as i have been told. Unfortunately, many teachers in New Haven are not and need support. Does Ms. Johnsky give those teachers support or just the boot. I hear she took most of her talent with her when she went to Fair Haven. Of course, that will help her turn the school around. Not all schools have that advantage.
IMHO, I think too many principals are given carte blanche to do whatever they think is best. I had to leave my past assignment of 20 years after a revolving door of principals decided to change my assignment again….6 changes over a 6 years. Why??? I was told, “Your so good you can teach anything.” Thanks a lot! This is not a compliment to a teacher. We are good when we can build on a grade level or subject over years. So as with a good principal, stay with a school and grow with it…not be moved around continuously always having to build new relationships. My wonderful school had 4 different adminstrators over a 15 year period…too much change.
I’m happy to hear that Fair Haven Middle has such wonderful leadership,as touted by Mr. Vitar, and is now making the grade. My question is, “What promises have been made to Ms. Johnsky about her stay there.” I’m thinking she has been promised a job in Central Office as a reward. What reward to good teachers get? I’ll tell you, frequent changes in assignments. Ask a few teachers from New Haven….your reward for good work is more change…and too much change creates burnout. As a long standing good teacher I resent that mindset.
Lastly, I think we need to all get on the same page. I have heard over the years that principals are NOT to take their good teachers from their last school and yet Ms. Johnsky has permission to do that? I’ve never heard of that practice before Ms. J did it?
