Portland State Magazine Fall 2013

12 PORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE FALL 2013 meeting places to find out what they wanted for their school. Parents hadn’t seen an administrator come to a game in years. During my first few months in the position, as the books advised, I listened. I built relationships. I analyzed data. But most important, I looked for places where I could find hope. I asked parents about their dreams for their school. Students shared their hopes with me. I met with teachers, secretaries, and a former campus monitor (who everybody told me was the real leader in the school before his retirement). As my staff began to trust me, I put in place a bell schedule, master schedule, yearlong plan, and school improvement plans— everything the “how to” books say novices should do. The superintendent kept renewing my two-week-at-a-time commitment. Help and encouragement began to come my way. The superintendent and my direct supervisor gave me regular cheer-leading. Community leaders and local business owners offered perspective, support, and funding. An alumnus who led a major corporation met with me regularly to coach me on executive leadership in turbulent times. FEW THINGS went as planned on the first day of school. In one of our small schools, the person in charge of student schedules hadn’t printed the schedules and didn’t show up for work, leaving us with dozens of teenagers who didn’t know where to go. I took this as a chance to get to know students, hear their stories, and apologize to them for the absurdity of having no schedule. Four days after school started, Roosevelt held its first cam- puswide assembly in several years. Previous administrations had canceled all-campus assemblies for fear of violence. At this gathering, we introduced students to our positive behavior support (PBS) program. Over the summer, my newly hired administrative team, my teachers, and I had looked at our school discipline data and decided that a schoolwide behavior plan was a must. Although students weren’t instantly thrilled about their increased behavioral responsibilities, they raptly watched a video we’d produced featuring music they liked and their friends, peers, and teachers. Its message was clear: We are each responsible for doing our part 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 followed one week later by a pep rally that ended in near chaos. During the rally, a white student started a protest that some people thought was dis- respectful 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 longtime 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 administrative 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 mentor; we identified kids with high needs and selected a partner to support each one. And we insisted that community partners work with students before or after school instead of pulling them out of class. Even as I saw things shift at the school, I wondered how many more months I could keep it up. But it was essential to push for deep change. I would’ve survived as a new high school principal if I’d followed the how-to manuals. My school would have looked 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 educational disparities in this community. FIVE MONTHS after agreeing to serve as Roosevelt’s temporary principal, I faced a turning point. I’d asked our superintendent to start the search for the real principal again. A human resources team came to school and met with family members and community leaders, who were by now engaged, to ask what they wanted in their next principal. Assuming that the superintendent wouldn’t allow me to continue as the leader, parents were angry. One blurted, “Why can’t we just have Deb- orah continue as our principal? She’s exactly what we want.” The administrators went silent. The room went silent. What the administrators 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. A 2008 graduate of Roosevelt High School, Lakrea Tillis, received encouragement from Deborah Peterson to apply for the tuition free Portland Teacher Program. She was accepted and will soon transfer to Portland State from Portland Community College.