to ensure academic success for our
school—through hard work, persistence, and compassion for one another.
Students also listened to our keynote
speaker, a respected community youth
advocate who encouraged them to
work on becoming their best possible
selves despite obstacles and past unwise
decisions.
That successful assembly was fol-
lowed one week later by a pep rally
that ended in near chaos. During the
rally, a white student started a protest
mentor; we identified kids with high
needs and selected a partner to support
each one. And we insisted that com-
munity partners work with students
before or after school instead of pulling
them out of class.
Previous administrations had cancelled
all-campus assemblies for fear of violence.
that some people thought was disrespectful to the black students who
were speaking, although the protest was
aimed at the administration. Although
a few students and staff members supported the protest, most were angry
at the student’s attempt to derail the
positive message and hope we were generating in the school. Following our PBS
program, we used progressive discipline
to respond to the students who were
responsible.
These first weeks as Roosevelt’s principal, working 14-hour days, six days
a week, were a crucible for my stamina
and courage. It was hard to discipline
popular employees who were mismanaging our limited funds or behaving
unprofessionally. It was draining to hold
tough, caring conversations with a long-time employee who always took Fridays
off and with high-profile partners who
engaged in drive-by visits that boosted
their image but weren’t serving students.
I took actions that changed some
dysfunctional patterns. My admin-
istrative team and I increased our
classroom visits, each dropping in to see
several classrooms a day. We no longer
allowed community partners to select
which students they wanted to tutor or
like many schools, with basic school
functions in place. But I wouldn’t have
contributed to the cultural shift that
needed to happen to reduce the educa-
tional disparities in this community.
The Turning Point
Five months after agreeing to serve as
Roosevelt’s temporary principal, I faced
a turning point. I’d asked our superin-
tendent to start the search for the real
principal again. A human resources
team came to the school and met
with family members and community
leaders, who were by now engaged, to
ask what they wanted in their next prin-
cipal. Assuming that the superintendent
wouldn’t allow me to continue as the
leader, parents were angry. One blurted,
“Why can’t we just have Deborah con-
tinue as our principal? She’s exactly
what we want.”
The administrators went silent. The
room went silent. What the adminis-
trators weren’t saying was that I’d told
them just days earlier to keep searching,
that I wasn’t sure I could do the work
over the long haul.
In truth, I wasn’t sure my spirit could
thrive as I kept confronting the dispar-
ities between wealthy and poor schools
in our district, the enormity of our
education goals and the limits of our
supports, and the needs of our families
and the scant services available to them.
I wasn’t sure I could sleep knowing
that our girls were used as prostitutes
to fund the gangs’ drug activity. Or
imagining students huddled outside my
office door at 6: 15 a.m. because that
particular heater worked well and stu-
dents were homeless and cold.
