Congrats on recently being appointed Assistant Principal at Hicksville Middle School! Can you share the steps you’ve taken to advance your career prior to taking on this new role?

I’ve always been focused on furthering my knowledge and expertise. My undergraduate experience at the University of Albany opened the door to my first job as an English teacher. While attending Long Island University, where I completed my master’s degree in English, I saw firsthand what it takes to be a great professor as I was fortunate to learn from great educators who all inspired me and demonstrated what good teaching and leadership looks like. When I started as a Touro student in 2003, this was the period when I was heavily considering switching to the administrative side but still wanted to learn more before making this major transition. I enjoyed learning from professors who were still active in the field in important administrative roles including superintendents and building principals. They shared real-life stories and illuminated how a successful leader can make a positive impact on students and enjoy the education process every step of the way.  I was also inspired by my father who, as a school building leader, showed me how to balance the many job requirements this role entails along with the importance of making school fun for students and staff.

I’m currently pursuing my doctorate, focusing on post-pandemic education and how educators have adapted as Covid has changed teaching, learning, and kids forever and I feel it’s imperative that we continuously look at what’s working and what is not in terms of instruction. I cannot stress enough the importance of leaders supporting shifts in instruction and how educators must think creatively and innovate to bridge the learning gaps.

Can you share some highlights from your previous positions?

Prior to my current role, I served as Assistant Principal at the Suffolk County-based Selden Middle School. I loved working there and some of my biggest priorities at the time were improving student engagement coming out of the pandemic as many of the pupils felt disconnected and weren’t as involved in the school culture as we wanted. So, I co-created a Student Culture Committee where we solicited teachers and students to come join us to brainstorm ideas and then subsequently created sub-committees and added a student voice to the decisions being made. We started an initiative where we had students make our morning announcements a few days a week and did a few things to promote mental health including starting a poster campaign asking what mental health means to our students. We got some unbelievable artistic responses that gave insights into the things that our students experience.

While I worked at New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science III in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, I was part of a program to improve the school’s performance. From enhancing instructional leadership through offering new hands-on resources to teachers and scheduling more in-depth lesson plan review sessions to working side by side with educators on implementing new techniques and strategies, we were able to transform a school that had a 54% graduation rate to 90% or better in each of our first five graduating classes.

Can you share your vision and goals for Hicksville Middle School in your new role?

My goal as Assistant Principal is to continue to support a thriving school community, while ensuring that I complete key tasks such as master scheduling, classroom observations, event planning, and being an active participant in the life of the school. Little things like playing chess with students at lunch and dressing up at our Halloween Dance have gone a long way in creating positive relationships with students and staff.  It’s a priority of mine to really get to know our students through being both visible and approachable. I’m also focused on ensuring our faculty have access to ongoing professional development opportunities and meet with our curriculum directors continuously so that we are intentionally structuring this development in a way that’s meaningful and productive for teachers and aligned with the vision of the district.

In what ways have you worked to support student needs throughout your career, especially during the pandemic?

When the pandemic began there was a lot of figuring it out as you go; however, I knew it was important to keep looking at what was working and what wasn’t as the situation changed daily. I also spent a lot of time checking in with students. Once we realized Covid was going to be around for longer than anyone initially expected, we divided up the student population and had certain faculty and staff members assigned to them. Our educators connected with these students in a variety of ways at least once a week and started leveraging Zoom breakout rooms to still give each child much-needed one-on-one attention. We kept trying different technology-related platforms to drive engagement and tried various learning tactics to see what produced the best results.

Additionally, the School Culture Committee was able to pinpoint how we can better support our diverse student needs, both socially and emotionally, and help to drive increased student participation in decision-making at the building level. I’m passionate about analyzing student data and using that information to plan interventions, as well as adjusting lesson planning based on individual needs. My mind frame is all about addressing the ‘why’ behind what’s happening with students, so taking the time to work on formalized interventions that outline an issue at hand, showcase what is preventing a student from being successful, and then figuring out what kind of support they need has been very helpful. Additionally, ensuring that we have a check back date in place so we can see their growth and getting the child’s parents involved is essential.

The leadership skills I acquired have been invaluable in my role especially when handling supervision, school management strategies, and human resource-related tasks. My Supervision of Instruction course asked us to collaboratively give feedback on teaching videos that we would watch as a class. Later, this shifted to us observing colleagues in our own school and discussing our individual observations.  I benefited from the feedback from not just my professor, but from my fellow classmates as well.  While I had many strong professors, I was fortunate to have two classes with Dr. David Helme, who was a superintendent at the time, and truly made our class a collaborative learning environment. He modeled for me what good teaching, learning, and leadership looked like. 

In your opinion, what are the most significant challenges and opportunities facing education in the post-pandemic era, and how do you plan to address them at Hicksville Middle School?

Student learning loss is a huge issue negatively affecting school-aged young people who struggled to adjust to remote learning during the height of the pandemic. In fact, some of our students, and many around the country, are grade levels behind where we normally expect them to be. However, the schools that are succeeding in getting their students back on track are looking including attendance, assessment scores, and teacher feedback, planning interventions when needed, designing schedules for all learners, and supporting the social and emotional growth of students in different ways.

Many students continue to have real anxiety from just being back in the classroom, so we’re intentionally offering them additional activities to participate in to help them feel more comfortable. Activities like Connect 4, rock-paper-scissors, and chess tournaments as well as dress-up days that involve staff, and even the principal, all improve social engagement. We have seen firsthand that the more connected these students feel to our faculty and staff, the more they will trust us. Ensuring we are visible through simple acts like just being present in the hallway and forming unique bonds through things like special handshakes will continue to improve the school culture overall. The Hicksville School District is really putting an emphasis on increased support staff so we can in turn better support our students.