Why Principals Matter from The Atlantic on Vimeo.
Changing the school, changing the culture.
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Can school principals really make a difference?
Earlier this year, Nadia Lopez was ready to quit her job at Mott Hall Bridges Academy. Lopez founded the public middle school in 2010, hoping to provide educational stability to students in Brownsville, Brooklyn– the poorest neighborhood in New York City.
Four years later, though, she worried her work wasn’t influencing the community.
Then Vidal Chastanet, an eighth-grader at Mott Hall, was featured on the Humans of New York photo blog, where he praised Lopez as the most influential person in his life.
“When we get in trouble, she doesn’t suspend us,” he said. “She calls us to her office and explains to us how society was built around us. And she tells us that each time somebody fails out of school, a new jail cell gets built. And one time she made every student stand up, one at a time, and she told each one of us that we matter.”
The post, which immediately vent viral on Facebook, was shared more than 145,000 times. Then something extraordinary happened.
Three days later, the blogger and photographer Brandon Stanton and Lopez started a fundraising campaign to send Mott Hall students to visit Harvard. The campaign attracted significant attention online, raising more than $1.4 million in just three weeks from 25,000 supporters.
It was enough not only to send the aspiring students to visit Harvard, but to fund college scholarships and the school’s summer program for an entire decade.
In February, Stanton, Chastanet and Principal Lopez travelled to the White House to meet with US President Barack Obama.
“There are a lot of people out there who want to provide advice and support to people who are trying to do the right thing. So you’ll have a lot of people helping you,” the President told the young Vidal, according to Stanton’s blog.
“Just always remember to be open to help. Never think that you know everything. And always be ready to listen,” the President added.
The Atlantic’s video team spent a day at Mott Hall to learn how Lopez responded to the attention, and more important, to understand why she is such a successful principal.
As Lopez explains it, her hands-on approach is a big reason why Mott Hall has become such a safe haven in Brownsville.
“In this building, my kids are going to feel like they’re successful,” she said with firm and caring conviction, before breezing off and down the hallway to yet another mission.
by Skippy Massey
This post originally appeared at the Humboldt Sentinel. Reprinted with permission.
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