The Departure of the ‘Turnaround Principal’
Research has shown that when black students feel the faculty cares about them, they are more likely to experience academic success—one reason why Cook knew the school that had been transformed from one of the worst in the state under Mills was still in good hands.
.. “We figured they were the most influential people in the building—the largest in stature, the largest collective group,” Grant says. “The football team goes beyond neighborhoods, beyond family connections, beyond regional things.
.. You get control of them, you get control of the school.
.. The football players not only became models of the kind of behavior the coach and principal expected, they also helped impose order. After Mills and Grant eliminated discipline problems, students were able to spend much more time focusing on academic performance.
.. In many public high schools, the principal is a figure to avoid. At Shabazz, they run toward him, not away.
.. “With Mills, I felt that we had finally gotten to a point where it was real education happening here, real progress. And we had just won the state football championship
.. He believes the school system is too focused on pushing all students toward a college education—when some may be better served by being introduced to careers like plumbing, electrical, auto repair, cosmetology, culinary arts, or even computer coding.
.. In language arts, not one 10th-grader at Shabazz reached the level of “meeting expectations,” which is regarded as passing the test. And just 5.6 percent of ninth-graders and 11th-graders passed. In math, no students passed the Algebra II test, while only 4.5 percent passed Geometry and 7 percent passed Algebra I.
.. “When I say systemic, I mean Shabazz inherits a lot of students who enter the school on the first and second grade reading levels.