Portland State Magazine Fall 2013

FALL 2013 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE 11 Lakrea Tillis (right) gave her former principal, Deborah Peterson, a hard time at Roosevelt High School. “That’s a student’s job. They should explore boundaries,” says Peterson, who stays in touch with former students through Facebook. Photos by Kelly James curriculum map, community engagement plan, budget, activ- ities plan, school calendar, and hiring plans. Two of the three small schools that made up the Roosevelt campus (for which I was the overall administrator) hadn’t yet hired a permanent administrator to lead them. The third one had an administra- tor in her second year. Roosevelt had been labeled a “dangerous school” by the federal government. It would have been classed as “failing” had it not been converted from a comprehensive school to three small schools in the previous year. The depression in the office chair matched the depression in my heart as I realized the magnitude of the work ahead. I looked around and murmured to myself, “Where the [expletive deleted] to start?” Books and articles for new principals advise them to do things like develop a vision, engage parents, develop professional learning communities, and manage the work day so they can spend more time in classrooms—as well as listen and be visible. Although this advice might suffice for a novice in a well-functioning school, I needed more. I needed to sustain my spirit—and that of the students and community. I needed hope. So did my students and their families. My students needed to be cared for as human beings, not just considered as test scores or poverty index rates. Talking about sustaining the human spirit as a leadership strategy might induce eyeball-rolling in some people. But many writers—such as Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade (2009) and Diane Wood (2011)—recognize that bolstering a sense of hope and truly caring about students are key to transforming schools and communities in distress. I knew I needed to build relationships. My introduction to the community started with an hour’s drive to a summer baseball game in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. I introduced myself with vigor to a cluster of families—who turned out to be the opposing team. I finally found the right team and introduced myself just in time to have Gatorade dumped on me in celebration of the win. Next, I met the community’s Optimists, who met monthly in a local bar and started each meeting with a prayer. When a member named Sister Mary discovered I was the new principal, she gasped and assured me everybody was praying for me. I quietly wondered why. The families told me for years afterward what it meant to them that I showed up at their