Report to the Principal’s Office Book Excerpt: Chapter 28 Profile and Practices of Highly Successful High School Students.

Dear Educators, please get them (eight graders moving up into the ninth grade) to start this journey on the right foot and on the right foot path!

Chapter 28 (presented here with some ‘blog-format-friendly’ and for the non-professional educator reader explanatory alterations) was based on 11 years of observing, analyzing, and compiling the best attributes of my top twenty-five students in each graduating (12th-grade) cohort. Also, as a superintendent, evaluating high schools (principals): course pass rates, grade promotion rates, ACT-SAT scores, Advance Placement (AP) courses participation and test-score achievement statistics, specific school (e.g., CTE) graduation requirements and success data, performance on required state and district standardized exams, graduation rates, and the ‘transcript and diploma quality’ of those graduating seniors.

Although, I included some student-specific personal and family profile qualities, so as to make these students more recognizable, and thus more strategically supportable for high school principals; I also worked hard to eliminate as many unique characteristics, idiosyncratic study habits, gender-specific methodologies and attitudes (in my school, girls statistically performed better overall, including in STEM courses), and distinct cultural, ethnicity, and family-structure factors as possible to get to the commonly shared and more easily accessible (and easy to be taught) soft behavioral and hard technical skills needed by present ‘moving-up’ eighth-graders; those qualities that can be modified and adaptively crafted for their own personal and critically challenging new high school experience. 

My experiential hypothesis is this: 

For the overwhelming majority of students; the success of the high school experience, and indeed the quality of a student’s post-high school life experience, can very much be influenced and/or determined by the level and quality, and quantity of that quality, of their knowledge, information-gathering competencies, adaptability skills, academic, behavioral and attitudinal performance in the ninth grade —This is specifically and applicably true if a student wishes to pursue a post-high school STEM college major and career!… I’ll get to the parent push-pull advantages, the level of K-8 ELA (English Language Arts) e.g., reading, writing and speaking skills, and the quality of eighth-grade pre-Algebra or full-Algebra mathematics course teaching and learning, the GPA raising strategies of preparing for and taking AP courses, as influencing and producing quality-of-outcomes graduation factors (variables) in a future blog post. 

Chapter 28: Practices of a Successful High School Student

Every year for eleven years, I stood as a high school principal before a large gathering of eager young people and their anxious parents at the incoming student/parent orientation. Every one of those years, I have tried to hammer home the same list of themed warnings and recommendations. Here are some summarized and condensed samples from my speeches:

  1. “I will first get out the saddest and most difficult part of my message today. And that is, as I look out at this lovely audience, think and ask myself, which parent is an enabler of academic poor performance and negative non-productive behavior? And, which parent is fully supportive of what we are trying to achieve in this school and supportive of their child being an academic success? Who in this gathering of parents and students, is really listening to me? Which student is wrongly and tragically planning, at this very moment in their minds, to bring their old school to this new school; bringing their old selves when a new self is required? Which way will this or that person go, based on hearing or not hearing my words?”
  2. “One of the first and most important decisions you will make as a freshman is your choice of friends. There is no truer saying then “birds of a feather flock together!” Eagles don’t associate with pigeons or chickens unless its mealtime, and that means the other two birds are on the menu! As you move through life, your priorities will change, and with that change there may need to be a change in social relationships; don’t stress, it’s a natural evolutionary part of life. Pick friends who are moving in a positive direction. Pick friends who are as, or more focused and disciplined than you are!”
  3. “Your guidance counselor will help you to complete the required assignment of designing a Graduation Critical Plan/Path Chart. This plan starts with your graduation objective; flows backwards (12-11-10-9), taking notice and care of every decision until it reaches your present moment. It will map and guide you through the difficult first day, week, month, and year of high school. Your ninth grade’s schedule and your attitude in response to that schedule determines your true intentions for achieving your graduation objective. This plan will measure your level of commitment by your academic performance in your ninth grade classes; it will expand to include critical actions to be taken, and the many important decisions that must be made during that same time period (at each grade level). The quality of your study and schoolwork production. Your plans, goals, and objectives for after-school, weekends, school breaks, and holidays, seasonal and summer vacations, from the first ninth grade semester, through to the last semester of your senior year. You should change the plan/path for improvement and enhancement purposes only! Too many students are forced on lowering their personal career goals and life expectations because somewhere between the ninth and twelfth grades they lowered their commitment to work hard for their dreams. Enter high school with a good plan. Evolve throughout your high school experience guided by a good plan. End your high school journey with a good senior post-high school plan!”
  4. “The first grade of the year in English will be determined by your work on the written assignment from your before-school book reading project (sent to all incoming 9th graders). Not only will this be your first recorded grade in high school, it will also (based on the work you put in) give us, the staff, a first look at your readiness and serious profile!”
  5. “In this school, ninth graders will be required to take the Pre-Act and PSAT 10.”
  6. “Failing Classes makes high school life less fun and challenges a student’s ability to pursue a desired career objective. Failing classes can knock you out of exciting electives that enhance your transcript and are enjoyable to take. Failing classes lowers your GPA! And how many students have I seen scrambling in the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades, struggling to raise their GPAs to meet internship criteria, a college program, or scholarship GPA requirement they are pursuing; failing classes will block you from great and wonderful after-school programs, activities, and trips. If you are in a course-grade aligned specialized major or CTE (Career Technical Education; chap. 16 RTTPO) program, a failed class can take you out of sequence, thus disabling you from finishing the program in the scheduled time period and miss gaining access to an apprenticeship program. No matter what anybody tells you, summer school or any other type of credit-recovery program, will more often than not, offer a less rigorous/demanding level of academic work than the course you failed in regular school.”
One of the greatest moments of the principalship is when one of your former students (Dr. Shonelle Hall) becomes a great principal!

Note to principal: A sure sign of a district or school’s academic-super-vision ineffectiveness is a huge and wasteful amount of money being spent on students who fail classes, too often for reasons totally unrelated to ability. The principal should meet early in a term to discuss with the APs and teachers, those students who are simply “choosing” to fail a class; and then, with an academic intervention/counseling strategy, support and encourage those students to move into the “pass” column side of the ledger. Now, understandably, the school and district are obligated by regulation to make credit recovery expenditures; but we should not kid ourselves, it costs the individual students, districts, and schools dearly when high school students fail classes. It is a huge, and for the most part, unnecessary cost for either establishing a credit-recovery program, or when a failing student occupies a seat in the same course the next semester or year. In any event, the money being spent in the credit-recovery area could be utilized in more positive and productive ways. Finally, students should seek to protect the good image and integrity of their transcripts at all times! C’s, D’s, and F’s are like those lights on a well-lit Christmas tree that don’t work—dark spaces on their transcripts! Make sure you convey to 8th-grade students that:

• “If your middle school experience was less than exemplary, you should think of the moving to a new school experience, where people are going to meet you for the first time, as an opportunity to redefine yourself into a new and better student self-image and profile.”

• “Hard work and perseverance can match and overtake natural skill. But when you match hard work, perseverance, and natural skill and talent, what we have is an academic power agent!”

• “You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Impress teachers and administrators early and in all of your classes. Teachers, like all professionals, talk passionately about their work. When your name comes up, let it be in the context of admiration and praise! (Plus, you will need some of these teachers to provide both verbal and written recommendations over the next four years!)”

• “You will start out in all of your classes with an “A.” You will then, through your actions (or inactions), maintain or lower that “A” designation. Teachers here don’t give grades; they simply match an A-F grade with your effort and performance, and record the result.”

• Then it is that painful recognition moment when I explain the difference between the K-8 “Age-Seat time” promotional system; and the precise, credit-earning driven high school “Carnegie” system for promotion to the next grade. And further, explain (again I apologize to my wonderful elementary-middle school friends and colleagues), “That for the first time in your public school education life, you are about to embark upon a journey to earn a legally determined, regulated, and monitored (by the state) graduation diploma. The only power the principal and staff has in this process is to add up your credits, confirm that you have taken and passed the required courses–including the labs if required, and that you have sat for and passed the required standardized exams, we can then submit your name as a “candidate for graduation” to the superintendent’s office. There is no “seat-time” or “aging-into” a high school diploma. And in this school you will not be allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony if you are not a “certified” graduating senior. Welcome to the high school world!”

• “One of the greatest threats to ninth grade success is planning and organization. Each of you will receive an academic year-long planner/calendar. Your student handbook as well as individual teachers’ syllabi will advise you as to how to plan long-term assignments, projects and exams. Your academic boat will sink early and quickly if you don’t effectively plan and organize your schoolwork, study, and personal life schedules…”

• “There is a qualitative and quantitative difference between homework and study. And the differences are connected to the variations of external (teacher assigned) and internal (self-organized by student) motivational and actionable approaches to learning and mastering the academic work. You must understand the difference in the time you devote to homework, class projects, assigned daily readings, and self-organized study periods. We will help you (the first 2 weeks of your English class) in this school by teaching you how to study; you would be wise to pay attention to those instructions!”

• “You must adjust to and manage the different personalities and teaching styles of individual teachers. They (having 150-200 students/day) will not adjust to you!”

• “I have never known a high school friendship that was so strong, that an on-time graduating senior told their best friend (not graduating on time), ‘You know, we are such good friends that I am going to delay my participation in all of the graduating senior activities, including the prom, senior trip, and the graduation ceremony itself; and stick with you for a summer or January graduation date!’”

• “The audience in the classroom that you entertained with your sit-down comedy routine will not be there to applaud you when you are facing the consequences of your actions in the dean or principal’s office; and they definitely won’t be with you as they get internships, jobs, and pull in college acceptance letters and scholarships!”

• “If you know more than your teachers then you are in the wrong place and position. You should be applying to the school for a teaching position, not a student position!”

• “In this school, you will be asked to produce your personal best in every aspect of school life. It will, at times, feel uncomfortable, and perhaps even a little painful; but you can, and will, survive it. Others have done so before you, and you will also be successful.”

• “You may feel at some point during the next four years that you are falling in love. I can assure you that this terribly distracting ailment, like a head-cold, is temporary and will go away if treated with intense academic study and a focus on a successful graduation.”

Principals: It is always good to include highly academically successful student ambassadors/tour guides for high school orientations. In this way, I am trying to present students who could serve as models for what the high school represents (and those qualities we want to see represented in all students). You are also helping these student ambassadors to enhance their “senior portfolios” (similar to a resume or CV), but that’s another chapter (7) in the book. I am also informally setting up and encouraging a new set of friends and mentors for incoming students. A typical comment from parents attending my 9th-grade orientation or open-house events will be to praise those (high-performing–honor roll) Student Ambassadors who were amazingly poised, knowledgeable, and professional in their presentations. In addition, these students (without using written notes) provided a wealth of well-spoken touring-guiding school information to the attendees! These outstanding students could also explain school programs and activities outside of their primary area of academic concentration or participation; in other words, they could ‘break down’ a CTE concentration construction trades major even though they may have been part of the pre-engineering or pre-medicine program track (and vice versa). And so, I now discuss the successful collective profiles and powerful attributes of these wonderful School Ambassadors and other highly effective high school students. Keep in mind that I am presenting here a composite of characteristics of the best student practices of many (thousands of) students I have worked with over the years. We should also keep in mind that there is no such thing as a perfect student or human being. But I believe there is a way to at least make one’s life more positive, productive, emotionally satisfying, physically comfortable, and meaningful by practicing and perfecting those qualities that ultimately lead to a successful high school and post-high school life journey!

Who are the most successful high school students, and what is it that they do to make themselves successful?

• (out of the student’s control but highly influential) It always increases the students’ chances for success if the parent and school are “tag-team” members. That teamwork is enhanced when the parent and school share and enforce the same learning and behavioral values and standards.

• (again, out of the student’s control) Having a parent or guardian who sees and understands public education as the only real and important path for the child to realize generational improvement. (These parents are not playing, especially with male students, the NBA/NFL life-lottery-game with their child’s future, rather the type of letters they are focused on are CTE, BA, MS, MBA, M.D., JD, DDS, P.E., RN, and PhD, etc.!)

• (out of the student’s control but a constant attribute) Parents are aware of the purpose, role, and meaning of informal (out of school) educational activities such as dance/music/art lessons, martial arts, tennis, chess, scouting, and visits to museums, cultural institutions and public learning activities. (Note to principal: With this category and with other “out-of-the-student’s-control” resources and advantage areas, you must step-up and step-into a more dynamic and comprehensive In loco parentis role).

• (out of student’s control) Even though the student is a teenager, the parent still exercises a great deal of effective supervision and advisory oversight over the critical successful transition into adult aspects of the child’s life.

• (out of student’s control) The student has the advantage of not being forced to make critical life-determining decisions without the wise experience of a parent or guardian who does not believe that the start of high school signals the end of their parenting responsibilities. These students are not unnecessarily thrust into the dangerous position of learning by their own mistakes. (Oddly, some parents of not-so-successful students have even verbalized that wish to me!) However, the parents of successful students help that success by providing them with lessons of their own life mistakes as well as the lessons of the mistakes made by other adults they have encountered during the course of their lifetime. These parents understand that good parenting is nature’s way of minimizing the number of harmful, and sometimes deadly, events that could prevent an offspring from reaching a successful adult life.

• (Not advocating for religion here, just stating an observation.) Highly successful students are likely to be regular attendees and actively involved with a faith-based institution.

• (For Black and Latino students) Did not attend a middle school where they were forced to hide or suppress their smartness. It helps to have a high standards, high expectations, and rigorous middle school academic program, particularly those students who have taken high school algebra or some other rigorous pre-algebra mathematics course in the eighth grade.

• “Emotionally-Situationally-Intelligent”: Able to pick up human-inter-action social cues, aware of unwritten rules, pick their battles, knows there is a time to play, a time to work, a time to laugh, and a time to be serious. These students tended to respect adult authority figures, even if they are lodging a protest, they always protest smartly, seeking not to seriously damage or sever the relationship with the staff person against whom they are lodging the complaint. Often it is in reference to a grade a teacher awarded that they thought should be higher. These students are well mannered, well spoken, polite and generally likable. As in all social, political, organizational interactions, likability is an advantage providing strength.

• Students who are either first or second-generation U.S. citizens; e.g., the children of emigrants. (again, just saying, don’t shoot the messenger!)

• The students who are more interested in pleasing their parents as opposed to pleasing their peers. They feel a sense-of-responsibility for the upholding of some family tradition or expectation for educational academic success; especially if they are potentially the first, or one of few in the family to attend college. They (and their families) see education in general and college in particular as a major life-changing-enhancing experience that is worth every possible sacrifice. These students are aware that there is no big (and in many cases any) family financial inheritance waiting for them when they reach adulthood.

• Hard work, academic success, and a positive attitude gives these students an advantage. Now, I don’t have quantifiable data to prove this. But based on my observations and conversations with teachers over the years, I believe that these students are able to gain (based on their past performance; and usually positive attitude) an advantage in the gray area grading phenomena. That is, when a grade of a student’s work product (as often happens) falls between a B+ and an A-, or an A- and an A, these students will always be given a higher grade (or if appropriate, the benefit of the doubt!) Perhaps, unconsciously or not, on the part of their teachers. I have always warned students of two realities outside of the control of the principal: (1) Teachers are human (they have feelings). (2) Teachers talk to each other.

• These students will automatically (consciously or unconsciously) seek to connect and create friendships with other high-performing students in their own (or a higher) grade cohort. Often, this is in some ways a result of being in constant contact in the same clubs, programs, activities, projects, honor roll society events, academic teams (e.g., debate, chess, robotics, etc.) or athletics (especially non-stereotypical e.g., gulf) teams. Also, the transition to high school will be used by some high achieving ninth grade students to make definitive (future defining) friendship and social association changes.

• Starting in the ninth grade (and definitely by the tenth grade), these students, with or without adult encouragement, will quietly, in almost a natural and unconscious way, seek out and begin to model themselves after the high-performing “legendary” high-performing sophomore, eleventh and twelfth graders. In another related and interesting phenomena, the sophomore, junior and senior high academic performers will somehow recognize this, and, seeing these high-performing 9th-graders as kindred spirits (younger versions of themselves), will begin to “adopt” these ninth and tenth graders. This is why it’s important for the principal to establish a School-Based Honor Society, complete with identifiable clothing, induction and recognition ceremonies, fun activities, trips and rewards, so that high-performing students can meet and establish friendships, mentorships, and a mutual support society. Further, you should ignore and reject any criticisms that you will receive if you work in a majority Black and Latino school saying that: “all you care about are the smart kids.” The effective principal seeks to serve and protect all of the different performance cohorts of students in the school. High academic performers deserve as much of your attention as any other group of students in the school; students should not be ignored or penalized because they do well academically. Plus, that positive attention you give to high-performing students will actually serve to empower and strengthen the resolve of underperforming students, and at the same time, also grow the ranks of the high-performers!

• Sometimes these high-performing students will reveal themselves early. They did not come to high school to play! You can even see it in their eyes during the Summer Bridge Program, the high school fair, orientation, a school tour/open house, or even when you make a presentation at their middle school. That look that says, “I am serious about my education, I’m ready!” And important in Title I schools, those focused students of color, who by some means have built up a natural immunity to negative peer pressure about appearing, acting and being smart, they are indeed ready to soar!

• High-performing students are equal opportunity course attackers. This means that even though their career objective might be in a particular area, they will proceed to systematically and aggressively try to earn an “A” in all of their classes, regardless of the academic course/department. They want and “A” in Physical Education and an “A” in Physics! The best ones have the ability to make every teacher feel that the class they are teaching is the most important class in the school. These students are constantly checking their GPA’s and the status of their class ranking. They are also fully aware of their fellow high-performing and pursuing a high GPA classmate competitors.

• They possess the ability to understand that the course syllabus is finite. And, yet, they know that their infinite minds, combined with their discipline and mastery of their own time and study-skills efforts, can successfully overtake and conquer any course in the school because it has already been done many times before. They will seek and receive “inside-info-intelligence” from their high-achieving uperclassperson “kin” on a particular teacher and course and use that knowledge to their advantage (note to teachers: which is why you must annually change up those exams!). As mentioned earlier in the book, I always made sure to have multiple copies of textbooks on the same subjects, but from different publishers in the library for study purposes (reading the same concept, especially with science and mathematics, in a different textbook can be of tremendous comprehension help to students). These are the students who will take advantage of that study technique, and will for example, read three different chemistry textbook chapters on a single topic until they understand and absolutely nail that concept! (Note to principals: I acquired these extra subject area textbooks by simply reaching out to the publishing company’s sales division.)

• Students who read independently (not school assigned) for fun and enjoyment.

• They are prepared to take full advantage of the most unexpected arriving opportunity. A special trip, a networking-empowerment event, greeting guests to the school, a print, radio or television interview, scholarship opportunities, internship and jobs. These are the students who have followed instructions and have their resumes updated and ready; they can prepare a speech immediately with the help of an ELA teacher who they have enrolled as an academic enhancement ally by virtue of that student’s hard work in their class; and they are fully prepared (the next day) to “dress for success” (having been taught by the staff) for any type of advantageous setting.

Note to high school principals: The school must prepare students not only for the linguistic and attitudinal code switching demands of society, but also the behavioral and presentation code switching requirements. Soft-Skills like: What “being-on-time” in different situations means, “networking” or the “30-60 second elevator pitch”, are not naturally acquired by any teenager regardless of socio-economic status. What also must be taught is a working knowledge of situationally appropriate attire; what is “formal wear”, “interview attire”, business professional, business casual, professional, etc. All of this under the standard of “Dress for Success”; which you may want to dedicate one day a week to this effort (and buy the dresses, skirts, suits, ties, shoes, blouses, shirts, etc., for students who can’t afford them, and distribute them confidentially). A  lot of clothiers and department stores, fraternal-sorority originations and corporations, will be more than happy to help you with acquiring these items for your students. Invite prominent professional men of color for a “How to tie a tie breakfast” (Professionals are more likely to help you with this and similar efforts if you don’t take up their whole day!) This event may sound simple, but for many male students this wonderful experience maybe the first and few positive experiences they have had like this with a male figure. Don’t have the quantifiable data or explanatory line/bar chart, but I can assert with the utmost “memory-confidence” a guarantee that on “Dress for Success” days, your student to student, student to staff conflicts, disciplinary issues will drop dramatically!

• Strongly self-reflective and meaningfully metacognitive: These students continually think about their own thoughts, behaviors, the effectiveness of the strategies and techniques they utilize, and how to rid themselves of unproductive and unrewarding practices. The ability to both see and change an approach that is not yielding the results they desire.

• These students have a four-year plan of action! They will seek to avoid any and all engagements, involvements, entanglements, conflicts and actions that would threaten the success of their four-year plan. They have the amazing ability to appropriately and properly contextualize and departmentalize fun and enjoyment and serious hard work. They have high ‘deferring gratification’ skills.

• They are fiercely, though not necessarily viciously, competitive.

• The top students always appear to have great time management and organizational skills. They have the ability to prioritize assignments and projects weekly, monthly, and across an entire semester or year, including avoiding that common ninth grade curse of disorganization. They start and finish high school in the same effective way. Again, they have their eyes on that GPA race from the start of ninth grade!

• They have figured the principal out! They understand well the role and power of the principal, and they utilize that understanding to their advantage. Just as they have successfully done with teachers in all of their classes, they have also analyzed and processed the standards and expectations of the principal. They will come and speak to the principal if they feel that they are not being adequately prepared to be their best academically competitive selves. For a high school principal, this is one of the most difficult conversations to navigate, as you try to balance professional responsibility and professional ethics. The students will never come to you prematurely, which means they are almost always correct. In order to maintain your moral authority and credibility, and to not embarrass the teacher. You must take some kind of quiet, confidential and professional affirmative problem-solving action. The good news is that these are the types of students who won’t show their teachers up because of the actions you have taken to correct the situation.

• High-performing students seem (with some exceptions) to avoid intense high school romantic relationships that can distract them from their academic work.

• The self-awareness to maximize their gifts and talents, and at the same time, successfully minimize and manage their weaknesses. Some of them will struggle with “people” and “patience” skills; this is where you might want to help them principal by teaching an “Effective Leadership” class or through some leadership skills development seminars.

• They know how to effectively utilize the text book, review book, and class notes for studying purposes. However, (a common school mistake) they are not always the best peer-tutors because they may have some highly-personalized “quirky” way that they study and attack their coursework.

• These students will be the first to sign up for the six-week Saturday, three-hour AP, ACT or SAT review study class (e.g., Kaplan or Princeton Review). They will also make sure to attend every session and invest all of their energy into the course assignments. Principals, you must raise the necessary funding to make these and other commercial test review classes available to all students!

• For the academically successful student, school is a fun-filled, fulfilling, reaffirming, and enjoyable place. For some of these Black and Latino students, the school also serves as a safe and peaceful academic achievement sanctuary. Title-1 high school principals, ignore the outside well-meaning but often wrong liberal noise you’ll hear for protecting these students. You must make your school a: No psychological bullying of academic high achievers safety zone!

• They are “soft-skills” masters: There is a certain maturity about them that allows them to rise above the typical teenage fray and drama. They see high school as just another area of challenge for which they must conquer and move on to the next level of challenge. And, so, there is a certain emotional efficiency skill to the way they deal with institutions, people, and situations.

• The high-powered students are critically aware that their competition is not just the students in their school or the classmates sitting at the desk next to them. Rather, their competition exists in other schools in the city, state, nation, and the world.

• (Important for educators) A general dislike of ‘group work,’ they see group work where they don’t choose the members, or team/group class projects as unsatisfying, frustrating, and non-productive; as these formations tend to slow them down and undermine their style and approach to work; and, perhaps most importantly, often compromises their quest for excellence and high grades (that GPA factor is always on their mind), if the other members of the group don’t match their work effort and commitment.

Note to principals: They will come to you to complain (having failed to convince the teacher) about a group/team project that they feel threatens their GPA, or that members of the group or team aren’t “serious” about getting the highest grade possible. Use this as a teachable moment for the student to learn empathy, compassion and social responsibility; but also reassure them that you will address the issue–and then do so! Meet with the departmental chairpersons and teachers privately to come up with a school-wide-grading plan and policy that won’t let the GPA’s of these students suffer if they engage in group or team work/projects. They will not be entering into a post-high school solo-work-world and therefore there is humility and some important “making others around you better” skills that they need to learn.

• They don’t feel the need to necessarily like the classroom assignment, they only feel that they need to get the highest grade allowable for that assignment; but they definitely want to be graded fairly! Teachers: For all students, be very certain as to why you gave a particular grade (have documented standards-based evidence). Also, a clear set of grading rubrics are always essential. These students in particular are going to involve the principal into their “grade appeal” process if not satisfied with your explanation-decision, when your principal would really rather be doing something else! And for goodness sake don’t follow that very common but silly public education unofficial rule of not giving a student an “A” for the first semester of work (allegedly as a ‘motivator’); you must give the student the grade they earned or you are degrading your grading system and giving your principal extra problem solving work headaches!

• The highest performing students spend quality time doing homework and even more time studying; they clearly understand the difference between homework and studying. Too many 9th-graders are confused about these two very different (yet linked) exercises; also true is the bad idea they picked up somewhere that suggest one should only study for an upcoming test.

• For Black and Latino high-achieving students, being in the right school (where high academic achievement is honored, recognized, and praised) will give them the confirmation and self-authority permission and protection to act and be smart. Not being forced to hide their smartness allows these students to produce academically at an amazingly higher level then they themselves expected, or what was indicated by their K-8 academic performance in classrooms and on standardized test scores. For principals: No matter how high an entering student’s ‘documented’ academic performance level, you must seek to push-them-up to the next (and then the next) performance level; often they may not be aware of their own possibilities, especially if they were not pushed to their ‘natural capability levels’ (or had no serious previous competition) in their K-8 school experience.

• If there is extra credit or bonus points to be earned for an assignment, project, or on an exam, they will take advantage of it. Given the option of taking a hard or easy assignment or project, they will opt for the most challenging, knowing (or not knowing) that they are positively influencing the teacher’s attitude toward them! (Again, teachers are human, too!)

• These students are first in line (having the academics and behavioral qualifications) for: paid and unpaid internships, service projects, special in- and out-of-school projects, programs, activities, and educational trips. All of these are opportunities for informal education, knowledge capacity building, and experience to enhance the student’s resume and biographies for scholarships and college admissions.

• High-performing students don’t waste their time on violating even the smallest school rules, such as the dress code. They seem to have little interest in the average act of teenage rebellion to adult rules. They weigh all of their actions against their primary principle and goal of high academic achievement. These students will, however, often voice their concerns about a particular rule to the principal, even as they follow that rule.

• Their style of notetaking and notebooks (well organized by subjects
and topics) are themselves, essentially course study guides!

• These students are totally not invested (or interested) in the personalities or stylistic traits of individual teachers or administrators; they are absolutely focused on their own personal educational mission. They will not confront or publicly challenge a teacher, but will not hesitate to come to the principal privately if they feel they have not been treated fairly or in the “adult definition” of a respectful way. They will avoid if at all possible involving themselves in any situation that will hurt their final grade.

• The students seem to get from day one that they are on the last leg of their K-12 public school experience. These students see every class, grade on a report card, any and all exam scores, term-semester success, and the significance of each of the four high school years as extremely important to their future life objectives.

• These students have their own personal high standards and expectations. These personal high standards and expectations are displayed in their work product in every class, regardless of the level of the standards and expectations of a particular teacher. For example, once they master the correct research paper and essay style/format they learned in their English class, they will utilize that correct style and format in every other subject area where a written response to an assignment or exam is required. In other words, they will write as if every teacher reading their work-responses is their English teacher.

• These students have considerable control of their school image, which is important when over a four-year period something can easily go wrong. I keep reminding students that the teacher you annoy today, is that same teacher you will need to write a letter of recommendation (LOR) for some important thing you want; and that writing a LOR is not a mandatory part of their job description! A good image in a school is like a gift that never stops giving a reward. Once at Phelps, a high-performing honor roll student was mistakenly (due to a teacher’s error) referred to the in-school suspension room (ISS). The Dean, sensing that something was very wrong, had security track down the principal. I spoke to the teacher and the situation was immediately corrected and she was removed from the room with an apology from the teacher. It is important to note that even though she knew she was innocent, she still reported to ISS quietly. This is pretty astounding since some of the guiltiest referrals to ISS dramatically claim that the teacher is wrong or has it out for them. What was also so amazing is that even the legitimate residents in the ISS asked her, “What are you doing here?” Or, as one student remarked, “This must be the end of the world if she is in ISS!”

• There is no shame in their game when it comes to earning high grades. When these students have a research project or presentation, they will have no problem asking any and every adult in the building including custodians, cafeteria supervisor, nurse, APs, art or technology teacher, and yes even the principal for help. On more occasions then I can remember, I had to dip into my own pocket when these students approached me for something they needed for a school assignment or project; how could I say no!

• Despite the amount of time these students must have spent studying in order to maintain their honor roll status, I often found it interesting that they were also very “school activities” busy. They were multitaskers in many different (three to six) extracurricular activities such as the track team, dance company, band, debate team, volleyball team, art club, etc.; along with this extracurricular involvement, these students also often served in student government as ambassadors and presenters for special tours, events held at the school as well as serving as representatives and spokespersons for the school at community, city, state, and national events. It is important to note that the regular academic course load for these students was often made heavier, starting in their junior year as they began to take multiple advance and AP courses.

• Near or perfect punctuality and attendance records. Not ever late to class and don’t go to the bathroom during class, less they miss something being taught.

• For Girls: They are the chief recognizers and protectors of the respect that is properly due to them by virtue of their existence. A high sense of self-worth and self-esteem are the greatest attributes, motivators, and guarantees of a young lady’s success in graduating from high school, regardless of the level of academic achievement potential. These ladies (in the best meaning of the word) don’t allow themselves to be physically or emotionally devalued, and see their personhood as worthy and entitled to proper attention that is appropriately due to a woman who is seen by males as meeting the standard of an honored friend or potential wife and mother of the young man’s children. These ladies of distinction are not practice crash dummies; their very presence demands, and is associated with, the highest expressions of honor. These young ladies are also singularly focused on developing and enhancing what they believe to be the most attractive part of their anatomy, their brains.

• For Boys: These gentlemen (in the best meaning of the word), seem to have a powerfully high definition of manhood. This affirmation of what it means to be a man is tied to their powerful sense of self-worth which is connected to a commitment to be high academic achievers. But this emotionally intelligent position also allows them to recognize and respect the self-worth in others. They are not driven by the lowest and most primitive definitions of maleness which is characterized by the objectification and exploitation of their fellow female students. Further, those Black and Latino male students who dare to be and act smart openly are already comfortable practitioners of how they should behave with women in our society. And (I’m sure I’ll be put in ‘cancel-land’ jail for this one!) also, these ‘dare-to-be-smart,’ academically high-achieving Black and Latino males are in my view, the most emotionally empowered, independent thinking, self-actualizing, and powerfully mature acting students in any American Title-1 high school.

• These students in the top 25 of their cohort are clearly aware of the college scholarship acquiring value that is attached to their GPA ranking. With all of the news media and the public’s attention being focused on the problem of student college tuition debt, they are conscious of placing themselves in the most advantageous and best scholarship acquisition position. Especially, since many of them are anticipating a costly graduate or professional school education beyond 4-year college. And, in a Title I high school, parental money for college is far from a given!

• They are departmental-guidance-college career office bulletin board watchers! They are constantly searching for opportunities such as internships, scholarships, college tours, speakers visiting the school, etc.

• They make sure that critical assignment deadlines are “trip-wired” (an early warning system) in their planner/calendar. For example, if a research paper is due on a particular day, they will put two dates in their planner; the date they wish to start the project and the date it is actually due to be turned into the teacher. This approach increases the possibility that they will receive a high grade on long-term projects and assignments since they are not trying to complete these tasks “two days before it is due!”

• They establish good connections early on with the school guidance/career office staff (guidance counselors are eager to work and advise high academically-performing 9th-grade students who seek them out). These students have a great appreciation and respect for the guidance/career office staff persons, but they realize that they are ultimately responsible for reviewing their own transcripts and making sure they are in the right classes, and on track to graduate. I always tell students—no disrespect to the guidance counselors—but in a high school where there is a large number of students, with a huge part of the administrative work being done by computer systems, there is always the possibility of errors. Every student must take ownership of their transcript review process to make sure that they are in the right classes and on the right path to that graduation outcome they are seeking.

• They are generally good test-takers (or work hard at making themselves good test-takers), along with the ability to discern the individual teacher’s standards and requirements; they then come up with a strategy to effectively meet those standards and requirements. Principal: It helps them and all students if the school and its principal resist the modern and popular (and hypocritically and selectively applied by many in our nation) anti-standards trend; prepare students to embrace and conquer standardized exams!

• The students who are able to effectively realize their interest in a STEM major/career, will start the process in the ninth grade. Planning for a STEM future means planting prerequisite seeds early and throughout the high school experience; they will ask: “What are the college STEM programs I am applying to looking for in the profiles and transcripts of prospective students?

A F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Team: A wonderful STEM program for high schools— https://www.firstinspires.org/

Note to principals: It is always easier to opt out of a STEM career goal than it is to opt-in as a high school junior or senior (difficulty in enrolling in the necessary courses). This is why I advocate that every high school student should take four years of mathematics and four years of a laboratory science. In this way, the student can still pursue a STEM major in college regardless of their high school courses profile. In any event, having a strong STEM course profile on your transcript won’t hurt a student, regardless of their intended college major. Those students planning to pursue a Pre-law, English Literature, or an Ethno-musicology major in college are helped, not harmed, by having taken and passed an advance math course and physics. Meeting the goal of graduating from high school is best facilitated when the student designs and follows a four-year pacing successes chart ( the GCPC–chap. 7 RTTPO); a student is always aware (or made aware) of where they stand academically at the end of every semester they are in school. I also think of this plan as an antidote and guide through the hectic last year of high school. This is a time when a great deal of things are going on in the school and personal lives of seniors; like all of the “senior activities” and preparing for that next major step into the adult world. There are many tasks that need the student’s attention and time. And, of course, these students still have a full year of full-time classes, some of which might be advance or AP courses. To successfully navigate the end of their K-12 experience and positively start off in a good place for their new post-high school life, they will need a good (GCPC) plan!

In conclusion principal:

The critical art and science of the principalship are measured by what you can do with many different students (diversely and differently challenged), who will show up to your school building exhibiting a broad spectrum of academic performance readiness, potential and aspirational dreams. It’s the ultimate school leadership ability (and what I looked for as a superintendent) to craft and cause: All Academic Performance Cohort Boats to Rise! 

For sure, there are many success-impacting factors (variables) in a new ninth grader’s life that you can’t control, such as poverty, homelessness, and the presence or absence of parent push-pull power (indeed, some parents, and not others, are going to read this blog and utilize it effectively). However, you (reading this chapter excerpt as a professional educator) can maximize your efficacious leadership capabilities by expanding your strategic planning supervision by implementing school-wide practices that will help students to fully develop their capacities to be successful first-year high school students. Be a positive active interventionist by effectively executing all 30 chapters of RTTPO (creating a “good and highly-effective school”); this will, of course, improve the successful graduation potential for all (9-12) students at all grade levels; however, setting some school ‘sub-mission’ goals like getting all 9th-graders to be well-organized, to pass all of their classes and understanding how to navigate the Carnegie grading and high school promotional/graduation system, is critical to reaching your school’s overarching major-mission goal of having all students to realize a high-quality graduation status and diploma in four years. You hurt your own personal, the staff’s energy and talent, and the school’s potential to be great with efforts that don’t pay tremendous singular attention to that freshman class. Their academic success or failures will significantly impact your school’s quality profile; but most important, how this cohort performs individually and as a group will greatly impact their future life-possibilities. In the final calculation, helping 9th-graders realize, reach and achieve their best academic and personal-empowerment-skills potential is one of the most professionally worthwhile and ethically correct thing a principal can do!

Report To The Principal’s Office: Tools for Building Successful High School Administrative Leadership.

  1. The main category of the book: Effective High School Building Leadership.
  2. Other subject categories: Preparation for the School Principal’s Certification Exam and the School Building Appointment Interview; School Supervision and Administrative Leadership; The Criteria for Selecting and Evaluating a School Principal, Job Requirements, and the Job Analysis of the Principalship; The Structure, Functional Components, and Organizational Elements of a High School; Effectively Managing Administrative and Instructional Practices That Raise Student Academic Achievement; Effective Organizational and Institutional Leadership.

Report To The Principal’s Office: Tools for Building Successful High School Administrative Leadership. Available at:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Report-Principals-Office-Sucessful-Administrative/dp/0692066314

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/report-to-the-principals-office-michael-a-johnson/1128850262?ean=9780692066317

Books A Million: https://bit.ly/2LbTeYD

Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40406669-report-to-the-principal-s-office

Better World Books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40406669-report-to-the-principal-s-office

Book Website: http://reporttotheprincipalsoffice.net/

About the Author:

Michael A. Johnson is a native New Yorker and a proud product of NYC’s public school system. This was also the city where he spent the majority of his personal and professional life. He has served as a public school teacher, Science Skills Center director, principal, and several years as a school district superintendent. Over  an 11-year period, he led in the designing, building, and serving as the principal for two state-of-the-art Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics-Career Technical Education (STEM-CTE), Title 1 urban high schools. He also served as an  adjunct professor of Science Education in the School of Education at St. John’s University.

The problem with uninformed and politically motivated public officials tinkering with public school mathematics textbooks.

Obviously, the governor of Florida (Ron DeSantis-R) does not have enough on his state leadership-management plate to occupy his time, so he has taken on the ill-suited role of state-wide “mathematics textbook evaluator”! 

The problem with his uninformed, not-pedagogically driven, cynical, and politically motivated actions are that the result will be to dumb down and make less effective Mathematics Education (ME) in the entire state, with a special harmful negative effect on those students who are not strong readers. 

Hitherto, the reason ME has escaped the fake and contrived “culture wars” (the way the “we’ll hold your coats while you’ll fight” news media lazily defines it) battle is because, unlike History and English Language Arts (ELA), the ME curriculum is highly characterized and driven by numerical, logical, quantifiable and immediately verifiable learning objectives; the only major “political” challenge that ME poses for those historical facts and language integrity deniers is them trying to “square” the word Algebra with the negative historical portrayal of the Arab and Muslim world. 

But there is an essential ELA component that is always connected to ME. And Mr. DeSantis did not need a psychometrician to explain that connection to him; any 3rd or 4th-grade teacher of mathematics working in Florida (had he asked) would suffice. And it is this ELA and ME connection and interaction that represent the major problem caused by his not-well-thought-out “textbook review” initiatives.

The end result of Mr. DeSantis et al. politicizing the teaching and learning of ME is that his efforts will weaken one of the most crucial efficacy components of ME textbooks —And that is, the teacher + textbook capabilities to help students to master the ELA aspects of ME classroom learning, and those same students being able to perform proficiently on external standardized assessments. 

For example, it’s the ELA components of ME that often “trip-up” those students who are Weak Reading Comprehenders (WRCs). It is these WRCs who struggle or fail with three fundamental linguistically-linked questions that must be read and interpreted correctly if a student is to successfully negotiate a mathematical word problem; they are:

(1) “What am I being asked to do?” (What is the correct process/answer this assessment is seeking?)

(2) “What are the correct operations or algorithms required to solve this problem; and in what correct order do I apply them to solve this particular problem or question?” (What kind, type or category of a “word problem” is this?)

(3) “Which ‘words’ or ‘phrases’ (and in what order) have been inserted into the question to distract me from the correct answer?” (Trying to assess if I really know the answer to the question, or am I just guessing.)

Helping students to connect culturally, practically, and linguistically to abstract mathematical concepts is an essential teaching tool utilized by all good mathematics teachers (see the film Stand and Deliver). But, this cultural-linguistic approach to teaching math is also necessary when developing students into being proficient and mastery level “standardized-test-takers” (a skill Mr. DeSantis used to get into Yale and Harvard).

An additional terrible by-product of Mr. DeSantis’s flawed drive-by textbook analysis program is that as students are conceptually and operationally weakened in elementary school mathematics learning, this ‘weakness’ will translate into greater numbers of those students not being adequately prepared to take on and master that tremendous STEM1-gatekeeper —Algebra! This will then result in many of these students not being able to later pursue a STEM college major and/or career after leaving high school.

There is a reason that we warn children not to play with any fire-related instrument or appliance; essentially, the issue is that they are not cognizant of the possibly dangerous or tragic outcomes related to their actions. Likewise, politicians should run for any office that interests them without ‘playing with’ the essential instruments (like textbooks) of public education. 

The critical components of public education should never be a careless throw-away strategy or a playing-politics-pawn in that politician’s political office keeping or higher office seeking plan; the result could be that many children can be permanently damaged educationally. And that’s because those aspiring politicians may not be cognizant of the destructive adverse pedagogical outcomes of their actions. We must let professional educators review and acquire the textbooks they determine that best support their professional work! Governors should manage states and leave entities like public education and Disneyland to those experts who have studied, trained, and practiced how to properly manage and have responsibility for the direct daily running of those institutions; and if you don’t know —Ask a professional somebody!

1. STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Your report from the principal’s office has arrived!

Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal:

Report From The Principal’s Office: A 200-Day Inspirational and Aspirational School Leadership Journal

The RFTPO Book: The second work in a unique series of school leadership books by a former teacher, science center director, principal, and superintendent; these books seek to explore, explain and propose solutions to the present challenges of identifying and creating great schools and (most likely led by) great school leaders. RFTPO combines the creative task of daily journaling with critical daily commentaries reflecting on the art, craft, talents, and skills required to be a successful PreK-12 educator, specifically, achieving success as a highly-effective school-building administrator.

Readership: Although specifically designed for current serving principals or assistant principals and professional educators who are aspiring or studying, or are presently serving in the capacity of a school-building and/or district level administrators, superintendents, district-level directors, coordinators, and supervisors, the language is structured to allow broader access to a diverse non-school based leadership public education stakeholder audience (e.g., parents, college professors, journalists, senior public education policymakers, elected officials, and tax-paying citizens) to find this Book accessible and “eye-opening” helpful in understanding the often “forgotten,” “unclear” or “hidden-from-public-view” inner workings of public Pre-K-12 schools. And the unique challenges the leaders of those schools are forced to correctly problem-pose and successfully problem-solve daily.

Why the focus on the principalship?

This Report From The Principal’s Office (RFTPO) book, in many ways, presents a concise daily compilation and an extended explanation of my professional interpretation of why some school-based administrators are incredibly successful (Day-103: “The highly effective principal’s toolbox will always contain these seven critical leadership skills tools”). And why, unfortunately, others are tragically unsuccessful. While still, others are committed to pursuing a mediocre/status-quo path, which is another way of being unsuccessful! (Day-152: “The not-so-good, the good, the great, and the highly effective school-building leader”).

First, because the emotional and educational well-being of students, staff members, parents, whole communities, and our nation is at stake, but also… Unfortunately (Day-47: “It’s not a matter of if it will happen; it’s only a matter of when will it be your turn!”) every year in the US, thousands of principals and assistant principals are either verbally or in writing (both are long-term career-damaging) disciplined or sadly in some cases removed for lack of knowing the “unspecified job requirements” expected of a school building administrator. (Day-54: “What you don’t know will hurt you: The hard truth about the “soft-skills” knowledge required for the principalship.”)

Leadership standards matter, and leadership quality matters the most at the operational core of a school’s success (or failure)!

Let’s face it, we are a ‘standards-based’ profession, so why would standards only apply to students and parents, but not professional educators, and specifically for the purposes of my work —School-based and district office educational leaders! So I start the RFTPO book off with two consecutive days of resolute affirmations:

“Day-1:The Principal is the single most influential difference-maker in a school’s success or failure.”

And then on,

“Day-2: The Principalship is a singularly unique position in PreK-12 education.”
These two opening chapters are in no way an attempt to minimize or dismiss the critical work of the other skilled essential personnel (custodians, cafeteria staff, teachers, paraprofessionals, etc.) required to operate a school; for even the best practicing principal could not function in a highly-proficient capacity if they had to (an impossibility) teach every class, prepare every lunch, as they kept the building clean and well-maintained; instead, my focus (and my intellectual interest), is based to a large extent on my experiential principalship praxis work; but, I am further inquiry-incentivized by my work-experience questions that were ‘planted’ and grew out of my time as a supervisor of principals, a superintendent. (Day-55: “Are highly effective principals born, or can good leadership skills and talents be taught and developed?”)

The Book is available on Amazon:

Paperback edition with notetaking daily journaling pages included: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0578916509/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647679684&sr=8-1

eBook edition: (Note: The eBook will not contain the journaling pages)
https://www.amazon.com/Report-Principals-Office-Inspirational-Aspirational-ebook/dp/B09VHCB8WF/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KEL25MH28J0N&keywords=Report+From+The+Principal%27s+Office&qid=1647450093&sprefix=report+from+the+principal%27s+office%2Caps%2C830&sr=8-1

I was glad to hear: “We’re returning to a Phonics-Based Teaching of Reading Instructional Approach.”

Breaking News: “Majority of freshmen tested at Baltimore City High School read at elementary level”*

Unfortunately, having entering 9th graders who are reading on an elementary school level is not “new (although it’s heartbreaking) news” to Title-1 high school principals. As happy as I am that some (kudus to them) news outlet has decided to bring this chronic and debilitating problem to the surface; it is essentially a public education “open-secret,” and further, it’s just a tiny fraction of the entire tragic story for too many of our public school children and their parents.

And, with some luck, who knows, this story could possibly inspire similar brave and revealing journalistic efforts on behalf of the “served the least” and “left out the most” children of our public school systems. Then, perhaps, a future news story exposé will proclaim something like: “Majority of freshmen tested at Benedict Arnold High School found to not have mastered the elementary school math (arithmetic) skills that will allow them to successfully engage 9th-grade algebra!” 

But beyond educational journalists finally being able to zero in and focus on the real academic challenges that cause so many of our public schools to fail to effectively educate their students. Sadly, what presently reigns is the: “We keep doing what doesn’t work cynical-cyclical-calcified approach” that is used so often by public school systems in our nation. This academic achievement “wall” can only be overcome by the actions of some brave educational saboteurs; that is the only way that the children that are harmed the most by public education’s lack of adaptive ingenuity have any chance of winning at learning.

I was happy to hear that the next NYC chancellor David Banks was looking to make phonics-based reading methodology a system-wide initiative. Having been a high school principal, he is fully aware of how serious reading deficiencies serve as a terrible obstacle to success in all academic subject areas. In the same way that algebra 1 mastery is that “great-gate-keeper” for having the ability to pursue a post-high school STEM college major or career. Those freshmen students who have not realized (being somewhere in the “zip code” of) on-grade-level mastery of elementary English Language Arts (ELA), e.g., reading (or mathematics skills), are facing a situation of not only possibly being unable to be fully successful in high school but also finding that their after graduation options are severely limited.

With all of the other challenges confronting our public schools (e.g., covid-19), changing lanes out of ineffectual instructional practices won’t be easy, even when it is something that must be done. For example, transitioning teachers (and principals) out of the “whole-language” approach to the teaching of reading is going to require a major professional development “lift.” Trust me, as a superintendent, I found it was extremely hard for a Community School District to make major pedagogical shifts, so for a school system of 1.1 million students, it will be a significantly tricky project to pull off. Still, it can (and must) be done.

(For the record: There are some specific situational/instructional conditions (e.g., standardized test-taking techniques) where “whole-language”(WL) methodologies are highly beneficial. In fact, when I teach these techniques to school administrators, I don’t use the phrase “whole-language” so that folks can focus on the pedagogy and not get “hung-up” on the phraseology… Further, I’m going to leave the “beneficial WL” conversation here because I don’t want to confuse my non-professional pedagogical readers, and I don’t want to write 2-3 more pages! My superintendent/principal/AP/teacher colleagues and mentees; we can talk about this off-line.)

The switching of organizational pedagogical thinking process will also face the powerful “headwinds” of the many different and multiple  “consultant lobbyists” who have undoubtedly already put their marketing powers to work. It is not unusual for many of these ineffective “school improvement” consultant forces to offer conflicting and contradictory advice (for a high price**)  as they give teachers and school administrators psychological whiplash when priorities and initiatives are changed from year to year. But sometimes and for some things, there must be a change because we know that in the past, regardless of the name of the “new approach,” the status quo’s over-arching philosophy remains the same, even if it is not working for the vast majority of our children. In any event, any significant educational change will take a reasonable amount of time. But for that academically struggling student (in math or reading), time is either a friend or an enemy, depending on the school’s teaching and learning effectiveness-adaptiveness culture. This means that high school principals can’t wait for the (phonics approach) change to “take full effect”; you should (I hope) already have a plan to teach students high school level work who can’t read at a high school level; while you also bring them up to middle and then high school reading levels, you must do both, teach high school level work & raise reading capabilities,  simultaneously! I know (I’ve heard it as a superintendent) that some high school principals will say that this approach is a “making bricks without straw” situation; it’s not easy, but it can be done. We must help students to successfully navigate high school course-work and also pass external (e.g., Regents exams) standardized tests; even if they can’t fully utilize the course textbook and/or they only read on an elementary school level; it’s has been done before: Assessing Accelerated Science for African-American and Hispanic Students in Elementary and Junior High School; Johnson, Michael A.; Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: Science Assessment in the Service of Reform; 1991. In our case study, many of the students who were the “real faces” and focus of my article, and who indeed passed the NYS science and mathematics high school Regents exams, were actually elementary school students!

High School principals with students who bring major academic deficiencies into their freshmen year need not  get “quick sanded” into a remediation-only approach. Students will naturally (and correctly in my view) resist this attack on their self-esteem; they know fourth grade work and they know they are not in the fourth grade! The only way to keep students emotionally engaged and inspired, and to insure that they achieve a quantitative (time/credits) and qualitative (knowledge/skills) high school graduation status, is to close their reading-comprehension, information-concepts, algorithmic-knowledge, vocabulary-phraseology, and test-taking-skills gaps; while at the same time, and this might sound counterintuitive, engage them in on 9th grade level and acceleration teaching-learning methodologies that can either neutralize or bypass the deleterious effects of  their reading deficiencies. This might require the unconventional approach of the teaching of a science course without or employing the selective use of a textbook; while at the same time the school’s ELA department races to raise the students reading comprehension levels. Any other approach for 9th graders with major academic deficiencies, will ultimately lead to principalship and (even worse) the students’ failure.

*https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/majority-of-freshmen-tested-at-baltimore-city-school-read-at-elementary-level?fbclid=IwAR1AuALiY0LwvhVGlkOyywEbAyYKWDW9Q_EIyDpdrc299d7aUcHXxYq-jZ4

**“$773 Million Later, de Blasio Ends Signature Initiative to Improve Failing Schools”: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/nyregion/renewal-initiative-de-blasio.html

I hope my words can save the job of some good and sincere principal…

“A principal resigns after an investigation into the allegation that she slapped a student who cursed at her… the district will be notifying the state, a step that must be taken in cases in which there is a possibility an educator’s license could be in jeopardy…”

For some, their difficult and painful moments can often become teachable moments for them and others. But I always said to my students that they need not learn every life-lesson through direct personal experience; in fact, as a school administrator, there are many leadership lessons that you want to learn from an observation-only distance. Still, the key to maximizing the power of any lesson and minimizing the possibility of experiencing personal pain due to a “bad situational outcome” is to learn the lesson without becoming the lesson!

As an educator committed to standards and having been charged with supervising principals, I believe in the supervision and administration licensing and certification process. Much practical, necessary, and important operational and managerial information, knowledge, and wisdom are learned from graduate programs structured to prepare educators for licensing and certification as school-building administrators. But like most professional leadership journeys, your career-education learning process will continue up to and after your retirement.

My own awareness and understanding of the principalship deepened and expanded after becoming a superintendent, for it was only then that I was able to step back (from my “siloed” school-building experience) and engage a large number of schools with different “organizational cultural personalities,” led by a dramatically diverse group of principal personalities. As a result, a great deal of the superintendent’s coaching-leadership work challenge is informing principals of the unstipulated “soft-truths” of school leadership work that, when ignored or absent, can lead to some very not-so-good outcomes. This is the reason why when supervising multiple principals with very different “leadership and personality styles,” it will at times feel like one is leading a group of “mini-superintendents” with their own set of “district regulations” (It’s the payback you earned for all of the ‘grey hairs’ you either added or removed from your superintendent’s head when you were a principal!)

One of those critical “truths” I learned about the principalship is that many “professional behavioral” requirements are not stated in the “official” job description or employment contract. The so many “basic” things that I thought, before becoming a superintendent, that every principal knew, I found out that some didn’t know (and some, frighteningly, didn’t know that they didn’t know). Some of those “unwritten (but very much expected) responsibilities” are: identifying a “crisis” in its early developmental stages, staying above the day-to-day schoolhouse “mundane-mess” fray, avoiding having a “pettiness” or “payback” personality, the art of smartly and strategically “picking your battles,” and, critical, have that calming, assuring and “lighthouse-like” attitude during any school environmental storm. (alas, everybody is watching your reaction to/in a crisis for clues as to how they should act).

The principal must be a model and the model of “appropriate responses” whenever any inappropriate situations or negative behaviors express themselves. This “tension-reducing-nullifying” approach is particularly true in those many school-based human-to-human confrontational moments when the team/cooperative school mission seeking effort is in danger. Like a professional fireperson, you must always bring water and not gasoline to any fiery person-to-person situation, especially when you are one of the individuals “in the fire!” On several occasions as a principal, I was forced to have a “you’ve got to be the ‘bigger-person,’ the professional, and let this thing go” conversation with a teacher when they were demonstrably holding on too long to some negative feelings concerning them receiving a real or imagined slight from a student, colleague or a parent. Which meant (and I won’t lie, it was hard at times) I had to walk the “let-it-go” and “lets-move-on” talk I gave to others.

How do you see this situation ending?” I would further ask a student, parent, or staff person, knowing the answer to my question was to be found in three subsequent values clarifying questions: “Will this end that you are ‘designing’ make our school a better or worse institution?”— “Will this situation end with lesser or greater student academic achievement?”— “Will the end you envision decidedly place you closer or further away from your personal dreams and aspiration?” And then, I listen to their answers.

The “How do you see this conflict ending” question (and the three follow-up questions) was something at times I also had to ask myself as a principal. The answers faithfully (and fortunately) never led me to a place of slapping anyone (even in those times when I was angrily called some names, none of which existed on my birth certificate).

Perhaps there should be a series of “gate-keeper” questions before educators pursue a career in school building administration!

Imagine principalship candidates before pursuing a graduate program in school supervision and administration, and before sitting down to take their state school administration and supervision exam; would first need to answer a few upfront qualifying or disqualifying questions that could save them and ourselves a lot of grief, time, and money. 

Sample Question: “If you are ever cursed at (or out) by a student, staff person, or parent, would you ever avail yourself of the “slapping option” as a response?” Ans: Yes or No. If an applicant answers “Yes,” then that person should immediately stop taking the exam, for there is no need to answer any other questions, and further, that individual should be allowed to leave the exam room and receive a full refund for all exam costs; but they should never become a principal!

But on a serious and practical note, the principal (or AP) should be the last person in a school building to use violence in response to any act of verbal abuse on the part of any school family member. After all, you always have the “official” power option to punish or penalize any bad behavior. That parent who called me a bunch of not-so-nice names threatened and did call and complained to the superintendent that I banned them for a year from all varsity sporting events because of their offensive and possibly violence-provoking language-behaviors. Well, guess what, “you are still banned until you learn to attend games and present yourself as a positive parent role model!” Executive power, when exercised, is an expression of strength and confidence; hyper-emotional, personal-hurt responses are a sign of leadership fear and weakness.

School building administrators must always “be cool and courageous under fire”  and ask themselves that critical question: “If I do X, the following Y or Z events will likely occur!” You know that pre-action thinking “counseling stuff” we teach to young people when they are in danger of making a “bad” life-altering decision. That “counseling stuff” isn’t an abstract philosophical exercise; it’s ultimately a concretely real and necessary good human relations life practice. And in any event, why would you undermine your own legal authoritative power by engaging in some extra-legal act?

Finally, losing a job is one thing, but when a district formally requests that the state revokes your license, well, that’s another whole level of pain. This action is the profession saying that under no conditions should you ever be anywhere near working with a school or children. This license revocation action is a very serious process (so serious that school districts must meet a very high “justification” bar for seeking it). And further, there is very little “compassionate grey area” wherein the superintendent can work. In a few cases where an educator had a “moment-of-bad-judgment” in what was otherwise a stellar career, I felt very sad (yes, believe it or not, superintendents are human) for being on the requesting revocation side of this process, even though it was necessary, and I could not avoid my professional and ethical responsibilities to follow through to the (that person’s professional career) bitter end.

When they go loud and angry, you always go low-volume and calm…

In every highly-emotional negative school building person-to-person situation (especially when it involves you personally), stop, take your time, take multiple deep breaths (and as I learned in my Yoga practice: pay attention to your breathing). Try doing a visualization; for me, it was always ‘seeing’ my mother’s face, and thinking of all of the sacrifices she made for me to be where I am now; and also, me asking myself, “would she approve of the response I selected?”  Remember that there are hundreds or thousands of other students, parents, and staff-persons depending on your leadership presence. Put aside your ego and perhaps let another staff person calm the situation. The first move is not guaranteed to be the best move. A few “curse words” didn’t create your leadership, and a few “curse words” won’t make it disappear. Always know that you are never without alternative choices; and so, push-pause, step back or step away if you must; because the post-incident review clarifying “charging” statement from your superintendent is going to be something like: “I understand that the other person might have been wrong, but, you are the principal!”

This wasn’t my intent, but like the principalship—stuff happens!

“As a principal, the only chance you have of keeping your students and staff safe (especially if you don’t have metal detectors) is to be willing to make some tough decisions that will invariably make some folks uncomfortable or unhappy; you must always err on the side of keeping your school family away from serious harm and danger. If your professional aspiration is to be universally liked, choose another career. The parents who say that you are “doing too much” are the same parents who will be on the central committee of the: “Why can’t this principal run a safe school!” club. As a superintendent, the only chance you have of optimizing the safety of your district’s staff and students is to support (back) principals who make legally bold and decisive decisions to keep their school families safe.”

“Parents running away and hiding while their child is sitting in jail suggest that this young person had been emotionally abandoned long before the tragedy occurred. School administrators must know when & how to intercede, operationalize and humanize “In loco parentis” before a crisis erupts.”

I have received thousands of supportive and encouraging comments from all over the country (and world) concerning my two multi-social media postings of 12/5 on The unique school safety and security challenges principals presently face. And I wish I could respond to all of them. But this particular post from a principal brought back so many personal principalship memories:

“Thank you for posting. I am constantly being scrutinized as the principal who is too strict, or a “rule-follower.” Parents compare my decisions with those of other principals and complain that “Other schools are _____” but you aren’t letting us ____.” My barometer has always been what’s best for kids, and I never have to second guess or doubt my decisions.”

The focus of my 12/5 two postings was on the challenges that principals face as they try to navigate the immediate school safety and security issues. But we should not lose sight of the many daily difficulties principals face on so many (unknown to most) other fronts. And how one can easily feel isolated and unsupported; yet, at the same time, be expected to perform “miracles,” which many principals amazingly manage to do!

As a superintendent, I warned the district attendees to my “Pursuing the Principalship” class; they should not want to be a principal because they believe they will not have a “boss” in the building looking over their every move and decision. Unfortunately, the reality is that a principal will have (too) many “bosses” both inside and outside of the school building but (too) little management authority that matches the written and unwritten job description and requirements of the position. Many of the principal’s unofficial “supervisors” (not the superintendent) will, of course, know how to lead and manage the school better than the principal; and they are often entirely oblivious to the fact that most of the “directives” they send your way, conflicts with the “directives” of other similar faux supervisors. For example, as a principal, I was accused (in the same school year) by some parents of: “paying too much attention to the academically struggling students” and by another group of “paying too much attention to the high academically achieving students”(Or, perhaps in my way of seeing it, I was paying attention to both groups!) And on another topic from “supervisory” community stakeholders: “Black and Latino children aren’t successful on gate-keeping standardized exams!” —I get them to pass standardized exams; “You’re too focused on standardized exams!” Please, make up your minds, people! This brings me back to that principal’s post; perhaps the best approach to principalship professional success is to do that which is ethically right, just, and in the best learning and safety interests of children; and see everything else as background noise.

Some MAJ library naming event pictures for all my friends and colleagues who are not on any social media platform.

Mayor-Elect Eric Adams and I walking to the official ribbon-cutting area. Now, there were so many beautiful moments created by so many wonderful people yesterday, for which I will need to post a lot of appreciation pictures. But this particular picture resonates so strongly with my spirit. This scene took place outside of the hearing of the press or audience and was that moment when we were simply two Brooklyn brothers paying tribute to our mothers for making everything we achieved possible. Thank you, Pauline Johnson, for I can never repay you for all the sacrifices you made on my behalf. I can only try my best to do some lasting good in this world… Blessings on all mothers who believed in us.

Science Skills Center High School Library Naming and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony.

On Friday, November 12, 2021, 1:00 PM ET, the Hon. Eric Adams, NYC’s Department of Education (NYCDOE) Science Skills Center High School (SSCHS), will ‘cut-the-ribbon’ on its new state-of-the-art Research Library and Media Center (RLMC). The RLMC will be named after the school’s founding principal, Michael A. Johnson*.

I would first of all like to thank Dr. Dahlia McGregor, the SSCHS principal, for developing a dynamically inspiring library facility and proposing that I be honored in such a fantastic way. I would also like to thank former NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza and present NYC Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter for graciously waving the NYCDOE regulation that prohibits the naming of any part of an NYC public school facility for a person who is still living (I am, by the way, very much alive, fully vaccinated + booster shot!).
As a former NYC superintendent, I understand the “political risk” of taking such a bold action; and so, I will always strive to honor their decision and work hard never to disappoint them.

Further, and in every significant way critical to this project, I would like to thank the Honorable Eric Adams (now mayor-elect of NYC), Brooklyn Borough President, who provided encouragement, material, and spiritual support for this new library facility. I am highly honored that Mr. Adams would recognize me, a humble son of Crown Heights Brooklyn, in this extraordinary way. And in addition, with all of the things he must have on-his-plate, that he has decided to attend the event personally. It is my hope and prayer that SSCHS will make his future public leader-servant mission work easier, and that SSCHS will forever remain (in the words of several former NYC Mayors and Chancellors, and specifically quoting one former NYC Chancellor Harold Levy): “One of the great bright and shining stars of the NYC public school constellation!”

I am also proud to announce that the Research Library/Media Center will be managed by the very competent and experienced hands of SSCHS Librarian, Ms. Sandra Echols. I sincerely hope that my former American Library Association and Brooklyn Public Library Trustees colleagues, and all of my many elected officials, corporate, private foundations, and city, state, and federal governmental agency friends will give this great new Library the support it deserves.

Finally, as you have probably noticed, the word “Science” is prominently situated in the school’s name; but it also takes the lead in the school’s extraordinary sense of respect for the principles of science; therefore, this event will be virtually broadcast so that we can encourage medically safe distancing. I am hopeful that at some point in the future, after everyone gets vaccinated (sorry, you know once a principal, always…), and we have defeated this Covid-19 scourge, we will be able to gather as a community and celebrate in this beautiful facility. But, until then, and with special thanks to SSCHS Technology Coordinator Mr. Andres Villar; here is the virtual viewing information:

Subject: Library Ceremony Zoom Meeting.
Topic: MICHAEL A. JOHNSON LIBRARY RIBBON CUTTING CEREMONY & OPENING
Time: Nov 12, 2021, 1:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86881150113?pwd=bmtIMjhtTS82b1JHWTk4ODRmTTBTZz09

Meeting ID: 868 8115 0113

Passcode: 470375

One tap mobile
+16465588656,,86881150113#,,,,*470375# US (New York)
+13126266799,,86881150113#,,,,*470375# US (Chicago)

Dial by your location
+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)

Meeting ID: 868 8115 0113

Passcode: 470375

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kqK1Chipy
If you have any technical viewing questions please contact Mr. Andres Villar at: (718) 243-9413

For all those who are ever watching and forever watching over us from the ancestral realm, my mother, family, and friends; my growing-up-in church family, the community/neighborhood elders of my youth; my childhood Cub/Boy Scout, Sunday school, Acolyte, and P.A.L. leaders, the kind and wise Hasidic (a WWII Holocaust survivor) grandmother who daily provided me with warm milk, cookies, and words of encouragement during those very cold dark winter days on my before-the-start-of-school Eastern Parkway newspaper route (Oh my, route #18!).

To all, both living and dead, of my great K-12 NYC public school educators. Please know, all of you, that I have failed and fallen short of my own expectations at times, but rest assured that I have always strived to be worthy of your hopeful dreams and aspirational belief that the unfolding promise, “under-divine-construction,” ever inquiring, and in so many ways awkward and discontented adolescent you thought warranted your attention would someday make all of your hard work, support, and sacrifices worthwhile.

My young world was (and the world still is) full of many morally and efficaciously excellent, gracious, kind, and caring adults, wrapped in all colors, religions, nationalities, and ethnicities; these are those who sincerely want to see all of the children of this world survive, succeed and enjoy life to the fullest; and without them, our species is despairingly doomed.

I was that societally disenfranchised “latch-key” kid who was able to survive into adulthood because of two safe sanctuaries; P.S. 9 elementary school and the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), where I went every day after school and stayed until my mother came home from work. The BPL’s unofficial childcare program allowed me to escape the many dangers of the Brooklyn streets. And yet, (as the old folks would say: “the devil can’t know what’s on God’s mind”), that escaping danger experience allowed me to spend hours on hours of intellectual seed-planting reading time with great enlightening books, across many different topic areas. That “falling-in-love” with books period of my adolescence would lead to a life-long love of reading, learning, and enjoying the knowledge prizes that waited at the end of every intellectual inquiry. P.S. 9 (and later JHS 294’s Gifted and Talented program) and the BPL learning sanctuaries also provided a constantly in danger Brooklyn Black boy with that critically crucial safe space to be smart. I would eventually share my love-of-learning, and seek to protect and inspire that learning-love in thousands of young people; and who would imagine (surely not me) that the BPL free after-school “childcare kid” would one day serve as a Trustee for the entire BPL system; and as a professional educator, create a nationally and internationally highly acclaimed after-school STEM learning center in a wing of P.S. 9! It all almost sounds—well, miraculous!

To my many friends and supporters, my professional education community colleagues, in the U.S. and from around the world (especially my former students who, to my great joy, are now my professional colleagues), to all of my former students in whatever career they pursued, to all of the outstanding school staff members, school administrators, principals, teachers, and the many school district staff members I worked with as a superintendent. Having gained a more wise and greater time-granted experiential understanding of life, I can now, with profound and humble sincerity, fully appreciate the many years of love, support, and positive teamwork accomplishments we have seen together; for surely your names are forever joined to the single name on the wall above the doors of this library—Peace and Blessings on you all. And to everyone, please stay well, stay safe, stay smart and follow the science!
M.A.J.

*Michael A. Johnson is a former teacher, principal, and school district superintendent. An internationally recognized formal (school-based) and informal (outside-of-schools) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and Career Technical Education (CTE) educator; and a School Leadership Educationalist. He served as an expert peer-review panelist for “request for funding” proposals submitted to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Science Foundation. A member of the Educational Testing Service (ETS), National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Science Assessment Exam Development Committee, designers of the first NAEP national science exams. A presenter and panelist at numerous professional conferences, symposiums, and meetings like the NYS Governor’s Conference on Developing New York State’s Action Plan for Science and Engineering Education, Research and Development, Albany, New York; 1990, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting: “Science and Mathematics Assessment in the Service of Instruction,” the National Press Club, the National Urban League National Conference: “Science and Mathematics Education, Tools for African-American development,” Philadelphia, PA, the New York Academy of Sciences, and as the keynote speaker at the International Conference for STEM Administrators and Educators, City College, Norwich, England.

The subject of many international books, dissertations, research studies, electronic and print media stories, and articles including PBS’s “Crisis: Who Will Do Science?” (1990) and the Nightly Business Report, PBS: “Phelps: An example of a school of the future”, 2008. The New York Times Magazine, “Scores Count.” Bulletin, National Association of Secondary School Principals – “Standards-Based Education”: Are Academic Standards a Threat or an Opportunity, 1997, Cross and Joftus pgs. 15-16; Savoy Magazine 2012: “CISCO/Phelps High School Developing the Next Generation of IT Leaders.” “Bridging the gap between cultures”; Li Xing and Tan Yingzi; China Daily; 2011. The Washington Academy of Science; Journal (v. 97, no 3); “STEM/CTE Education: Phelps as a new model”; Dr. Cora Marrett (NSF); Dr. Sylvia M. James (NSF); 2012. Johnson also serves as a consultant and grant writer/reviewer for universities and school districts’ STEM-CTE projects/programs funding proposals. In those efforts, he is working hard to build strong and sustaining STEM-CTE operational and systemic pedagogical “bridges and infrastructure” for the PreK-16 educational systems role in building and expanding the national STEM-CTE career “pipelines”.

The author of many newspapers, magazines, and journal articles, including two American Association for the Advancement of Science Journal articles: “Assessment in the Service of Instruction” and “Science Assessment in the Service of Reform.” Johnson was appointed a member of the NYS Education Department Commissioner’s Advisory Council on Equity and Excellence in Mathematics and Science Education (1989-1990). The recipient of hundreds of awards, citations, and proclamations, for example, Resolution of Recognition U. S. Senate Floor; Congressional Record-Senate; S9581; U.S. Member of the Senate; Mary Landrieu (La); The Global Diversity Innovation Award; World Diversity Leadership Council; Boston, Mass; U.S. Department of State Award: “For Contributions Fostering Global Understanding Through Language Learning and Support of the National Security (Chinese) Language Initiative,” Washington DC. Multiple Proclamations in Recognition of Dedication and Excellence in Education, U.S. House of Representatives, NYS Senate, NYS Assembly, and the City Council of New York.

As a principal, he created the first majority Black and Latino students national F.I.R.S.T. Robotics and Cyberforensics academic competition teams. As a superintendent, he extended STEM learning to the early childhood, elementary, and middle school levels by building dedicated applied STEM Labs and assigning specially selected and professionally developed science teachers to those labs. As a superintendent, he also provided access to larger numbers of Black and Latino students to the district’s expanded Gifted and Talented, International Baccalaureate (IB), and Advanced Placement (AP) programs; while building lower-grades “STEM capacity” by significantly “ramping up” the quality and efficacy of elementary mathematics education; thus having more students prepared to take 8th-grade Algebra (the “STEM gatekeeper”).

He is a former NYC Mayoral appointee as a Trustee of the Brooklyn Public Library. Instrumental in leading the designing, development, and building of two Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—Career Technical Education (STEM—CTE) high schools: Science Skills Center High School, NYC and Phelps Architecture, Construction, and Engineering High School, Washington DC. In addition, Johnson has served as an adjunct professor of Science Education in the School of Education at St. John’s University. An author of a book on school leadership: Report to the Principal’s Office: Tools for Building Successful High School Administrative Leadership.; and is presently completing his second book on school administration and leadership: Report From The Principal’s Office (Fall/2021).

Report To The Principal’s Office: Tools for Building Successful High School Administrative Leadership

Report to the Principal’s Office (ISBN-13: 978-0692066317), 484 pages, $25, is available for purchase in hard-copy or Kindle on: Amazon at http://a.co/5YEPTmJ,

Barnes & Noble at https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/report-to-the-principals-office-michael-a-johnson/1128850262?ean=9780692066317

Books A Million at https://bit.ly/2LbTeYD.

THE BOOK…

  • The main category of the book: Effective High School Building Leadership.
  • Other subject categories: Preparation for the School Principal’s Certification Exam and the School Building Appointment Interview; School Supervision and Administrative Leadership; The Criteria for Selecting and Evaluating a School Principal, Job Requirements, and the Job Analysis of the Principalship; The Structure, Functional Components, and Organizational Elements of a High School; Effectively Managing Administrative and Instructional Practices That Raise Student Academic Achievement; Effective Organizational and Institutional Leadership.

About the Author…

Michael A. Johnson is a native New Yorker and a proud product of NYC’s public school system. This was also the city where he spent the majority of his personal and professional life. He has served as a Public School: Teacher, Science Skills Center Director, Principal and several years’ experience as a school district Superintendent. Over an 11 year period he led in the designing, building, and serving as the principal for two state of the art Science Technology, Engineering & Mathematics-Career Technical Education (STEM-CTE), Title 1 urban high schools. He also served as an adjunct professor of Science Education, in the School of Education at St. John’s University

His book: Report To The Principal’s Office represents a compilation of the lesson plan objectives’ & notes from a Teacher to Assistant Principal (AP), and AP to Principal courses that he taught as Superintendent of Community School District 29 in Queens, New York. It also serves as the working-reflection textbook from many years of serving as a principal and superintendent. During those 20+ years he was responsible for appointing, mentoring, professionally developing, supervising, evaluating/rating, and unfortunately, in some cases, removing school principals from their positions. This book is about focusing on and defining the best practices of an effective school-based leader (SBL), the principal.

Some of his appointments include: The New York State Education Department Commissioner’s Advisory Council on Equity and Excellence in Mathematics and Science Education, Albany, New York. Health Careers Opportunity Program, College of Health-Related Professions Task Force, State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, New York The Pre-College Science Education Initiate for Science Museums Review Panel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Bethesda, Maryland. Expert Grants Peer-Review Panel, National Science Foundation, Washington. Educational Testing Service, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Science Assessment Exam Development Committee, Princeton, New Jersey. Clarke Fellow in Science and Mathematics Education, Teacher’s College Columbia University. Charles H. Revson Fellow for the Future of NY, Columbia University, New York. Trustee Brooklyn Public Library System.


A Few Of His Awards: “Special Recognition Award”, Kings County Club National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club. “Recognition Award”, Women’s League of Science and Medicine. “Ailanthus Award” for Community Service, State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn. “President’s Award for Outstanding Educator”, Medgar Evers College of City University of New York, Education Conference. “Award of Excellence”, City of New York Human Resources Administration. Proclamation, The City Council of N. Y.; Council Member 35th District, Brooklyn. “1993 Bridge Builders Award”, Black Child Development Institute. “Humanitarian Award”, Youth Law Center. “Community Service Award”, NYEX – Minority Management Association. “Community Service Award”, Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Inc. The Evelyn Brown Clarke Memorial Scholarship Foundation, Science Educator Award. Brooklyn Public Library Board of Trustees, Award for Service. “The Faithful Servant Award”, Progressive Club of Concord Baptist Church of Christ. “Outstanding Service”, American Legion, Department of New York Zone 2. “Meritorious Award”, National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club. “Congressional Achievement Award”, Congressman Gregory Meeks. “School District Leadership Award”, Congressman Major Owens. “Dream of King” Community Service Award, Hip Hop Summit Youth Council. NAACP, Albany, NY; Albany Branch Award, April. Resolution of Recognition U. S. Senate Floor; September 14, 2006; Congressional Record-Senate; S9581; U.S. Member of the Senate; Mary Landrieu (La) Global Diversity Innovation Award; World Diversity Leadership Council; Boston Symphony Hall; Boston, Mass. U.S. Architect Of The Capital Appreciation Award. U.S. Department of State Award: “For Contributions Fostering Global Understanding Through Language Learning and Support of the National Security Language Initiative”. U.S. Department of State Appreciation Award: “For Dedicated Support Of International Education and Exchange For the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellows Program”.