EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Principal N., Part I

On October 11th, Principal N. was interviewed. This is the first ever posting of her responses.

What are 3 things setting our high school apart from others in New York City?

"We give students responsibility for their own learning and I think that's super unique. I think teenagers are treated like (older people in our school)...but I think our society turns them into useless people...and they're not responsible for their own selves. We actually hold them responsible for learning, for creating a safe school environment, for the behavior of their peers."

"I think teacher evaluation is a really big thing...an important thing..but I think we've lost focus from the point of how much learning is happening, who is responsible, and how well they are doing it. Teacher evaluation has something to do with that. But our rubrics put responsibility on students and teachers for quality of learning. Students have a huge responsibility for carrying out their own intentions and creating an atmosphere where people can speak freely and feel safe and learn."

"I think we have genuine distributed leadership. Our SLT (School Leadership Team) is a real leadership team. We have a system where people are empowered, where every adult is a leader in some way and it's not a top-down school. And kids take leadership in school structure--such as the Uniform Committee (student-led enforcement of uniform policy, class by class)."

"We didn't create a system where we hired more people to boss others around (for example, no Assistant Principal is to be found). Summer school is led by students. Their jobs are to teach each other. It's super fun to see all this and a majority of people seem happy. In general, people are very happy here."

What is 1 major thing that sets our school apart from other high schools nationwide?

"We believe in students' capacities to take responsibility for themselves. And we believe students can solve their own problems, with coaching and help with how to. Solutions nationwide are to have more adults solving students' problems."

FOR NEXT TIME: School goal for 2012-2013 school year & how school will implement the new national Common Core standards...