New York Voices; 503; A Year of Change, Part 5

[Pi Roman]: In the spring of 2003, 3 aspiring principals began their academic journey through the New York City leadership academy. A school created under direction of schools Chancellor Joel Klein to train a new generation of principals for the New York public school system. [Bloomberg]: The one and only way to succeed is by having the right leaders, in the right place, at the right time. [Pi Roman]: Mayor Bloomberg has staked his job on transforming the largest public school system in the country. And he's betting that leadership in the principal's office is the key to this transformation. Our 3 principals Larry Wilson, Alexandra Anormaliza and Rafaela Espinal Pachecco have challenges that are unique to their schools and challenges that are common among elementary schools and high schools across the United States. Did the leadership academy prepare them for their new jobs? Would they have been effective principals without their training? Is leadership innate or can it be taught? These are the questions we continue to explore as we watch each principal try to

build one good school. [speaker]: Funding for a year of change, leadership in the principal's office. Provided by the Wallace Foundation. Supporting ideas, sharing solutions, expanding opportunities. Additional funding for New York Voices provided by the members of 13, Michael T. Martin and Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown. [music] [Pi Roman]: It is the fall of the first school year for our 3 new principals in the New York public school system. Alexandra, Larry and Rafaela have left the academic protection of the leadership academy and are now immersed in their schools. Over the past 2 months, they have moved from the honeymoon to the hot seat. And each of their leadership styles is starting to emerge. Larry had a head start when his predecessor was asked to leave in the spring of 2004. Larry stepped into his new role early. [Wilson]: Good morning. [Pi Roman]: He took over as principal of Red and Roses Integrated Arts High School in Harlem. [Wilson]: This is the day. This

day that you have prayed for, it is the day that you have planned for. It is the day that you have worked for. [Pi Roman]: When the new Fall term started, Larry began by instituting high visibility changes. [Wilson]: That's how you wear a uniform, very nice. [Pi Roman]: A new uniform policy, a stricter enforcement of student attendance and he and his team brought in a number of new faces into the school by hiring 17 new teachers and administrators. [Wilson]: Good morning. How you doing? Good. [woman]: Thank you. [Pi Roman]: Rafaela inherited P.S. 147 a pre-K through 5 school in Bushwick, Brooklyn. A school that had not experienced change for over 20 years while under the leadership of one principal. But when that principal left, her placement was not welcomed by many of the teachers who had spent most of their careers in the school. And she was charged with implementing the new curriculum mandated by the Department of Education. The

combination of changes was too much for the staff and the new principal to overcome together. So, Rafaela fresh out of the leadership academy, took over as principal this year. [Rafaela]: Good morning. [Pi Roman]: Unlike her classmates who inherited schools with an existing staff and student body, Alexandra had the opportunity to create her own international high school. She handpicked her staff. [talking in Spanish] [Pi Roman]: And the new school was open in the fall within the old Prospect Heights High School, a campus that is shared with 4 other small New York public schools. Alexandra's challenge is to create a curriculum that will prepare students who are recent immigrants to the United States. All speak English as a second language and their academic skills vary widely. Alexandra's leadership style is a collaborative and consensus building approach. She met with her staff early in the year to brainstorm creating the school's curriculum. [Alexandra]: The challenge is for us to mod-

ify the curriculum to fit what we know to be instruction, not the other way around. Leadership is about asking yourself questions asking questions of your staff and trying to follow the right path and then asking others hopefully to follow um, that path with you. Can you read this to me? [student]: That's my name poem. S stands for smart and successful. [Ramsuchit]: She's very nurturing. She to the kids, to the teachers. You have a problem, you go to her, ask her, you speak with her she listens to you and she considers what you have to say. It's not just like OK thank you. She's wonderful compared to other principals. [Walsh]: She's very, um, and I and I say this in a very kind of playful and joking way almost but there's a degree of seriousness here, she's very subversive in a lot of ways but in a s- in a subversive in a way that's thoughtful and that well things don't make sense. And there's a lot about schools that doesn't make sense. If there's not a real rational answer for why we've always done things that

way then let's not do it that way anymore. It's almost what you have to do in order to be to be successful. [teacher]: Where does the milk come from? The cow. What's the cow eat? Grass. Where's the grass get energy? [Pi Roman]: Alexandra has a staff that believes in her and in the school. So the greatest challenges are really about the process of educating the students. [Alexandra]: The biggest challenge is definitely the range of abilities that our students have as well as the linguistic differences and the levels of language that they speak. And I'm I'm referring to English in particular. [teacher]: What is this? It's like a plate but [students]: Glass, glass bowl- [teacher]: In French. [students]: glass bowl, a bowl. [teacher]: Bowl, bowl. It's almost the same right, so how do we write it? [Ramsuchit]: Oh there is such a wide range of academic level in the same world. You have kids who can't count. And you have kids who can solve quadratic equations. [Walsh]: That is without a

doubt how I spend most of my time is trying to make sure that there's an entry point for each of the students so that they don't feel like they're wasting their time here and that there's something that's valuable for them. [Pi Roman]: Are the teachers successful in trying to challenge all of their kids? It may be too early to tell but we know that some of the kids who say they are not being challenged are making their feelings known. [Alexandra]: Did he tell you what he told me? [student]: No. [Alexandra]: He was feeling a little down and he said he wanted to go to another school next next year. [student]: I think ?inaudible? I'm not really sure. [Alexandra]: What do you think about [student]: I think it's serious. [Alexandra]: You think he's serious, really? Hmm. [student]: But next year we going to 10 grade- [Alexandra]: Mhm. [student]: and we ?inaudible? other classes same same same floor. [Alexandra]: Same floor. Mhm. [student]: Same teacher? [Alexandra]: Same teachers and other teachers. We're gonna have 6

other teachers, 6 new teachers. Why, would you like other teachers? Yeah? That's possible. Is there maybe something you wanna talk to me about later? [student]: Yeah. [Alexandra]: In private? [indistinct chatter] [student]: ?inaudible? I'm boring. [teacher]: Oh, it's not hard enough? [student]: No. [teacher]: What subjects are you bored in? [student]: English, social studies, science. They're kind of easy ?inaudible?. The math is hard but every subject that that's kind of easy that was ?inaudible? [Alexandra]: I think that a lot of our students kind of know things on the surface and then they feel like, oh well I know how to do this it's easy. But it's not as easy as they think it is, when you really wanna do it well and you want to know it deeply. So, um, with ?Tencen? I don't really know what his particular concern is. So I'm very curious to find out what that means to him.

[Pi Roman]: While there may be disparities in the abilities of the students, they do share the common bond of being new to this country. The International School took a trip to Ellis Island in October and used an interdisciplinary approach to explore immigration into the United States. [woman]: What parts of the world are the most people expected, from 1990 to 2000 what's the most? [man]: America. [woman]: The Ameri- cas. [Pi Roman]: While all the public schools have to follow the guidelines of the Department of Education, Alexandra for the moment almost has the flexibility of a principal in an independent school. And that's because her school has joined an experimental program called the autonomy zone. It gives principals is freedom to run schools without regional oversight. In exchange, principals have greater accountability. [Alexandra]: We were asked to agree to meet a set of benchmarks that, um, include attendance and, uh, graduation acceptance to college. The idea is that we're giving the autonomy to decide how we're going to budget our school.

And Danny said he would be teaching here or here. [woman]: OK. [Alexandra]: How we're going to schedule, what curriculum we're going to use, how we do professional development both for our teachers and for ourselves. The, uh, Department of Education is trying to find out well does that help us become more productive? If this experiment of sorts works out, more schools in the Department of Education will move toward autonomy. [man]: Is a map that's just exactly what I'm looking for. [girl]: Are you sure? Thank you. ?inaudible? [singing] [singing continues] [Pi Roman]: 2 months have passed since we first visited Rafaela at P.S. 147. In September, the teachers were just setting up their classrooms. Now it's November and the children's work is being displayed throughout the school. Rafaela has initiated a make over in parts of the school that according to the building manager was no small feat.

[man]: The colors were this actually they were school colors and by school colors I mean that those colors belong to the school and, uh, to change them is actually considered taboo. In the past, we were required to do 10 percent and now so far we've done 30 percent of the building. By the time we're done we should be at 100 percent which is great. [Rafaela]: We don't have to have all the books of the first day of school cause- [man]: Oh she's a very tough customer she because she's very demanding. She knows what she wants. She requires more than a minimum, more than the average. She knows she has a vision that I have not seen and in anyone for a long time. [Rafaela]: I think I'm a little more settled in terms of getting to know the school, getting to know the children, getting to know the teachers. And each students gonna have a folder we gotta talk a little bit more about that [teacher]: I already yes, they already have a writing folder. [Rafaela]: The job demands a lot of energy. It demands a lot of communication and finding those people that can help you.

You can't do it by yourself. [Pi Roman]: Rafaela leans on her cabinet. That includes her math and literacy coaches. And she found a real ally in her assistant principal. Vicky Broadhurst has been in the school for 4 years. [Broadhurst]: I see my role as as that of of I'm her assistant where like she always says I'm her husband. You know, we have the same philosophy. I don't want to be a principal it's not anything that I have an interest of at this time. I feel that my greatest contribution is to help Rafaela a- as much as I can meet her vision for the school. I'm in awe of her I should say or amazed because she really knows like the balanced literacy. And so I learn something every day. So I then in turn when I'm speaking with the teachers, can make sense for them of of something that's still new to us.

[Pi Roman]: In September, P.S. 147 had been listed as a school in need of improvement by the Board of Education. But when they received their math scores this fall, they were told that the school had made adequate yearly progress. But the school is still falling far short of the standards of the Department of Education and Rafaela's vision for where she wants to take the school. [Rafaela]: We're not scoring on the 90th percentile. Or the 80th. Or the 70th. [Pi Roman]: In fact, P.S. 147 has a long way to go to reach even those percentiles. 4th graders tested only in the 36 percentile in English language arts. [Rafaela]: Yes it doesn't mean that good teaching is not happening. It just means we haven't found the right way to meet the needs of certain children. [Pi Roman]: It is not only that there is a brand new curriculum, Rafaela has to inspire her teachers to adapt to her higher expectations for student achievement. [Levine]: Right now, try to take all your ideas and put them on paper. OK. You're doing a great job. The approach is through a lot of nonfiction reading to the children rather than having them have their own

textbooks. [Poley]: I think the workshop model could work you know I mean you know but when you have for instance 32 kids 30 kids sitting on a rug, I mean it's just ridiculous you know they're not paying attention because you know this person touching me, this person doing this. [Levine]: There are some teachers who really love this new style. They love her new approach. And there are teachers here who are very frustrated and angry about the approach. Um, me, persay I'm I have to say I fall out in the middle. I don't like to be a judgemental person. Um, I I somed- somedays I come home I'm extremely frustrated. There are some days I come home I'm excited about the changes. [Pi Roman]: Approaching teachers with feedback is an art in itself. In the beginning of the school year, Rafaela was leaving post-it notes with feedback after observing a teacher's class. [Rafaela]: I switched from post-its to [holds up notebook] cause I needed a record I found that I would leave teachers notes and it was like oh I didn't see that I didn't get that. So now I have this memo which is duplicate.

I haven't gotten feedback. I don't get a lot of feedback at all. So, unless I see something was implemented that I suggested. [Lindenberg]: Well, we actually don't like the notes because of the fact that we prefer personal comment. The writing really is just in passing and you just tell me change this, this looks good. It's not enough. You know we're people, we're not we're not books and we expect the conversation. [Poley]: Being in Ms. Espinal's shoes, um, being principal was not an easy job. Um, but, um, I would try to, um, not be friends with my staff but also not make enemies along the way. Not that she is but I would I would really think a little more before I do things and really analyze you know, is this going to you know upset my staff because we really have to be a team if we want you know the school to succeed. [Rafaela]: I like the way you use the capital. Letters to really put emphasis on tha- on that quotation marks. [Levine]: She's definitely creating an environment that is very nurturing

to the children. And some of the issues and processes that Ms. Espinal is putting upon the teachers, frustrate us because we don't feel like we're taking on that role as teachers too much anymore. We feel more like a computer, more like a program. And I I don't know if it's just coming from Ms. Espinal's belief. It's always a trickle down theory. Um, but we feel frustrated on that approach and I I hope to see change on that because we're people too just like principals and teachers and children and we need to come together to try to find a system that works not for just one group of people but for all of us. [Cappelletto]: If she has gotten the parents more involved in the school it's it might seem like a small change since there was almost no parent involvement before. I see it as probably the most dramatic change. Her biggest hindrance is that she didn't have managerial experience before she came to this

school and if she has a weakness I think it's in expressing herself to a large group of people like the faculty at this school. [Lindenberg]: I think Ms. Espinal's giving it her all actually. She's trying to make a change and she's only been here a few months so it's has to be gradual. The kids have to get accustomed to it just as just as a staff. And it's a work in progress there's nothing else I can really say about that. [Pi Roman]: On this day, the dean of the Leadership Academy Sandra Stein came to visit. [Stein]: You've been going around giving them feedback basically [Rafaela]: I try to. [Stein]: Right. but is it sys- well now that you have systems in place so that you have a chunk of time in the day, they are devoted to probably be able to do more, right. So now the question is, how are you delivering these messages and what do they understand your purpose to be? [Rafaela]: Well I can only go by different things that I that I might hear. So in one term that I heard was policing

and and that hurt in a certain way. Like it hits your ?core? cause it's like it's so not about me policing. It's about like good instruction and and making it better for the children and if good things are happening then you don't have to defend yourself or you don't have to be intimidated by me coming into your classroom because if you're a good teacher, you're a good teacher and I wanna know what you feel passionate about and what are you an expert at so that I can building expertise. But I also want to know what you want to work on and grow so that I can provide you with the professional development to you know make you better at what you feel you're struggling with. [Stein]: The first year of anything is very difficult. The newness of the challenge and the questioning yourself as you make decisions. Most things you're doing for the first time in schools where you really want to make lasting change you have to temper the urgency to kind of chase after everything as it comes up with a very clear

sense of where you're trying to go and what you need to lay down what foundation you need to put before you can move and and really have a sense of how the movement will happen. [Pi Roman]: Back at the academy, sessions like this one allows first year principles to compare notes and get support. [Waronker]: One day I had 3 faculty members assaulted by students and I had students all over the hallways, it's an impact school. You know the staff was like horrified. But I left the building, laughing and smiling. And everybody saw that. And there was a message that was there. We're in control and those students were led away and some in handcuffs. But the thing was, we need to be positive and we need to understand that everyth- everybody's looking at you and they're feeding off your energy. And when they saw me smiling and laughing on top of it everybody was more relaxed.

[Stein]: When you see everything you too can get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the challenge that you're facing. Do you have a place where you can go, be a human being who feels like a human a compassionate human being would and then get back out there with the game face on? [Waronker]: The greatest challenge has been to build trust. I'm the sixth principal in this school in 2 years. Everybody wants to know whether I'm gonna last Am I gonna be here in 2 months from now? They don't know that. So it's a lot of trust, a lot of confidence and that is a challenge. I'm having a retreat this weekend with my staff up in the mountains to build that trust so that we can build that common vision. That we know that they should know that I'm not about to leave them. [Miller]: It's not quite what we expected but it's not to the point where you're ready to give up. I think it's just extremely challenging. [Simmons-Peart]: In the beginning, I really was upset. I locked myself in the bathroom at actually home and I cried because it was very hard for me. You have a system of highs and lows and then

that you that's why you redirect your focus and reassess yourself. But it's much easier than it was in September. [Pi Roman]: Many of the low moments in New York City public schools involve violence. Red and roses is a comparatively low incidence of violence. And part of Larry's strategy to keep the school safe is to be a constant presence when students enter and leave the building. [Larry]: No, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about that group down there, that's not good. [woman]: What's going on down there? [Larry]: I don't know but I don't like the look of it. [woman]: Me either. [Larry]: That group came to pick up a couple of our girls and they're not from our school. That is something. They're waiting too patiently. That's something. [woman]: ?inaudible? rain ?inaudible? [Larry]: Yeah. Yeah that's something. ?inaudible speaking? the NYC ?inaudible? [Larry]: 2 of those outside boys What you saw today was had to do with a little name calling that blossomed into a full fledged, uh, family feud. Um,

and this is a longstanding conflict and so it came back again this year. There was a conflict mediation session conducted by my dean with those young ladies, um, earlier today. But sometimes they forget to tell the other parties that they alerted, that A, everything's called off. Did you bring [girl]: No, no, no, no I did not. [Larry]: did you have them girls come over here for the express purpose of fighting. I thought ya'll did a mediation today. [girl]: I did that's what I just said. [Larry]: I thought this was all over with. So why wouldn't you take them and go? [girl]: I did not bring those people. I did not bring those people. That's word to everything I love I did not bring those people. [Larry]: OK. Why everything always gotta- [Larry]: Because they're with you. [girl]: They're wi- I been walking with them cause I know them I did not bring them. [Larry]: Just go straight home. Stay outta trouble. And that may have been what happened today. So the conflict is now fresh again. And we'll deal with it again tomorrow. Until eventually someone is suspended and then they'll get the message and it'll go away until next year until they

graduate. [Pi Roman]: This emotional roller coaster according to Sandra Stein, is common in a school that is trying to improve. So the principals were asked to map their own highs and their own lows. [Larry]: You know the grass always seems greener on the other side until you hear somebody who's really dealing with another kinds of issues. I learned that I wasn't the only one not sleeping. I learned that, um, I wasn't the only one dealing with resistance. We really were placed in the kinds of situations that we were promised we would be placed at. [Pi Roman]: For Larry, some of his highs and his lows have included working with his assistant principal. Larry listed a fight with his AP, more than once in his lows but he would not discuss the nature of the problem with us. His AP would not appear on camera to discuss the situation either. Do tensions like this arise from the way leadership academy graduates are placed in their schools? [Larry]: There is a perception among our naysayers that we can't handle the job, that perhaps, uh, we were handed something that we

weren't ready for or deserving of is probably really what people feel and we take our hits because of that. Clearly any time you go into a situation where somebody's really been busting their hump to make it work. And then u- here comes the golden child which is probably a little bit of how we are perceived you know from, uh, the Leadership Academy. Maybe I wanted this job. It's certainly one of the I would say unintended consequences set up by the dynamics of how we came into our positions. [Stein]: In any industry a real turnaround situation is the most challenging work there is and you would want to send somebody with years and years of experience into that situation. However, the labor economics of the situation, there are not many veteran principals who are signing up to go into turnaround situations. So we need to prepare the first year principals as best we

can to go in and make a difference. [Pi Roman]: We'll continue to watch these 3 principles as they try to make that difference in their schools. [Larry]: That's good work, that's nice what- [Pi Roman]: In our next episode, we'll find out what Larry's staff and students think of his leadership and specifically how he's trying to increase student achievement. [student]: Mr. Wilson is a great principal. He's a friend, he's father figure. [Larry]: Still not in uniform. [student]: Me and Matt you know- [Larry]: Also not in uniform. [student]: When I do something bad, he'll correct me. I do something good, he'll con- gratulate me. [other student]: He takes time and he listens to the students and he hears what we have to say and when we say it. he looks into it. [music] [speaker]: Funding for a year of change, leadership in the principal's office provided by

the Wallace Foundation. Supporting ideas, sharing solutions, expanding opportunities. Additional funding for New York Voices provided by the members of 13, Michael T. Martin and Elise Jaffe nd Jeffrey Brown.