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During her interview, we learned that there will be six separate high school buildings which will be called "academies". The new Lawrence High School is expected to open in the Fall of 2006. Mr. Sharkey also revealed that there may be six seperate graduations each year. Each academy will have it's own point of interest; i.e., a Math and Science Academy, an Academy of Fine Arts, an Academy of Journalism, etc. Each high school "academy" will consist of 500 students and each will have its own principal, assistant principals and staff. Dr. Sharkey also
told Hanna that he hopes to remain as an integral part of
the new high school's operation, but was not sure what
role he would play since the personell decisions
regarding the high school have yet to been determined. The operating budget for the new high school (with all six) buildings, once opened, has not yet been projected. Those expenses must also be approved by the Mayor and the School Committee.
Hanna's Education Corner
I have always loved the book, “Down These Mean Streets,” by Piri Thomas. It’s a book about some boys who grew up and lived in New York City. I read it a long time ago when I lived there. I started teaching in New York in 1968 ata Jesuit high school in Manhattan. So it was of great interest to me. Superintendent Wilfredo Laboy came from New York, did you know him before coming here? No. I grew up in New Jersey and my wife and I moved to New York when we were married. We lived there for a few years while we taught. My wife taught at a parochial high school, Cathedral High School for girls in mid-town Manhattan. Then I went to teach at UMass Amherst. What is it like to be a principal? It is fun and very exciting. It is also scary sometimes. I realize that Lawrence High School is so important for everybody. When I think about the fact that I am the principal of this school, I realize that everybody has to do well for the kids to get a great education and go on to college. As the principal, I am the one who has to make everything work. It’s a tremendous responsibility. Lot’s of good things happen here at Lawrence High. It makes you feel good about all the work we do here. When do you plan to move into the new high school? My hope is September of 2006, but it may be December. The reason that is important to me is because I would much rather move during the summer and start school in September than to move half way through the school year. I am still hoping that we can do that. The people who are building the high school say they are ahead of schedule right now. They get a reward if they are finished before May, so there is an incentive. I hope everything is ready on time. What was your hardest problem? My hardest problem was, and still is, to figure out how we can set things up so that when students starts ninth grade they can do well in school through their four years of high school. You know, some kids struggled in school before they came here and they are not feeling real good about themselves as learners. So, the hard part is to figure out how I can build their confidence and help them to understand that they can be good students and graduate. What is your biggest accomplishment? Well, regaining accreditation was pretty big. You see, Lawrence High School was recently visited by a group of people who are educators. They came to the school and said, ”things are going really well here at this school.” They put you on a list of schools that basically says ”we put a stamp of approval on your school.” That’s what accreditation basically is. But that wasn’t my accomplishment alone. There were a lot of people who worked very hard to accomplish that. But I was very proud of it. How is Lawrence High better now that it is accredited? To get accredited, we made a lot of improvements such as what we used for books and how the teachers taught in the classroom. We also did a whole lot more to measure how well the students were doing in school. We got the teachers together to talk about what it takes to be successful. All the students are now starting to express a great deal of pride in being at Lawrence High School since we regained accreditation. And that makes a big difference. How many students are in the high school? Right now we have exactly 2,500. I am finding that there is more continuity now with more students staying through the four years of their high school grades. Fifty eight percent of the kids who were 10th graders in 2003 were with us in seventh grade in the Lawrence Public Schools. Forty two percent of those kids who took the seventh grade test are gone. How big is the new high school going to be? The new high
school is really going to be six smaller schools that
will hold up to 500 students in each school. Each The schools are going to have themes There is, for example, going to be a high school of Fine and Performing Arts, a high school of Math, Science and Technology. We are right now focused on what is called career academies, or career focused academies. When a student comes to Lawrence High in the 9th grade, they go into what is called a success academy. By the 10th grade they will choose a career academy. It is all college preparatory. So what we
are planning is a school that will have six buildings
with thirty-two classrooms in each building. The rest of the time what we are hoping to do is have the faculty and kids feeling like they are one small school. We are even talking about having six different graduations for each school building. The truth is that our kids in this city need close personal attention. Smallness makes that happen. If they are too much disbursed, you lose the sense of being in a small school of your own. That’s why I like the idea of an individual principal in each building with a one-year contract. He will be held accountable. Do you support MCAS Testing? Yes, yes I do. Here’s why: I think MCAS checks to make sure students know what they should know in order to go to college. I think it is a good test because it does that. It asks students to write and write well. It asks students to know their math facts and be able to use math in everyday life. It also asks students to read and to read well. For all those reasons: math, reading and writing - that’s what MCAS checks on. It’ s been hard to meet that challenge, but I do support the test. How do you become a principal? Well, most of the time, principals have been teachers so you should be a teacher first. You have to take a lot of courses in school and get a Master’s degree, at least; some have Doctor’s degrees. If you have the qualifications, you apply for the job. You get a license in the state of Massachusetts that says you can be a principal in this state. Sometimes people think it is better to be an assistant principal first, but others like myself have never been an assistant principal. What is the difference between being a high school principal and an elementary school principal? I have been both. I was an elementary school principal at East Boston Central Catholic School. It was kindergarten through eighth grade. It’s a little different from being in a public elementary school, but not that much. The big difference between being an elementary school and high school principal is that the students are much older in the latter. Because they are much older, if they haven’t done well in school, it’s much harder when they are in high school to help them see that they can really learn and do well. The other
thing that is different is that high school students have
one teacher for history, another teacher for math and
others for other subjects. In elementary school you tend
to have the same teacher throughout the day. What grades did you teach? Well, I always taught high school and I taught history. I liked being a history teacher. Are you going to be the principal of the new high school? You know, I am planing to be there at the school. But there are two possibilities: one is that I may be one of the six principals in one of the buildings we talked about, or there may be a position where we need somebody to coordinate all the six schools, like a head principal. That’s what I’d like to do, but we have to work it out over the next year. Should good teachers be paid the same as bad teachers? Here’s what I say: rather than ask that question, the real question is how do we make sure that all teachers become, or are, good teachers. Well, that is my next question, how do you handle bad teachers? It is important for teachers who struggle or are having a rough time to get help from me and other educators who can assist them to become better teachers. The way it works, Hanna, is that when a new teacher comes to the school, they have three years to show everybody that he or she is a good teacher. That to me is a reasonable amount of time. With most teachers, you can tell when they will be a good teacher or a bad teacher in that time period. Every once in a while you find a teacher who was very good and all of a sudden they stop being as good as they used to be. That’s when you have to put the teacher on notice and say, ”hey, this isn’t OK,” and I am going to help you. And you spell out what they have to do. If they don’t do it, then you have to let them go. Now, sometimes a teacher after three years thinks they can’t get fired because of the unions, but that’s not true anymore. It is my job to make sure that I do all I can to help them become a better teacher. I also have to make sure I am showing people that this teacher has not been responding. If teachers aren’t doing what they should be doing, they shouldn’t continue to teach. We can’t afford it. Too many kids get hurt if there aren’t good teachers in the schools. How long have you been the principal of Lawrence High School? I am starting my fourth year at Lawrence High. I started in 2001 and am hoping to stay for a long time. *Send your questions
comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com |
Last
week, Hanna, The Valley Patriot's Education reporter,
interviewed Lawrence High School Principal Dr. Tom
Sharkey for her column called "Hanna's Education
Corner". (see below)
What is your favorite book?
is going to have it’s own principal
and its own guidance councilors and teachers. In each
school the students will be there in 9th, 10th, 11th, and
12th grades. All together, Lawrence High will hold up to
3,000 students, but each school is going to be it’s
own small school.