In Bronx School, Culture Shock, Then Revival

NY Times ^ | Feb. 8, 2008 | Elissa Gootman

[Alouette]

Junior High School 22, in the South Bronx, had run through six principals in just over two years when Shimon Waronker was named the seventh.

On his first visit, in October 2004, he found a police officer arresting a student and calling for backup to handle the swelling crowd. Students roamed the hallways with abandon; in one class of 30, only 5 students had bothered to show up. “It was chaos,” Mr. Waronker recalled. “I was like, this can’t be real.”

Teachers, parents and students at the school, which is mostly Hispanic and black, were equally taken aback by the sight of their new leader: A member of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism with a beard, a black hat and a velvet yarmulke.

[Alouette]

I can't believe this was in the New York Times!

[Alouette]

FReepMail to be added or removed from this pro-Israel/Judaic/Russian Jewry ping list.

Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.

[Rudder]

“I was like, this can’t be real.”

Chill out Mr. Principle, dude. Go back to school and learn English.

[flowerplough]

Sometimes teachers balked, as when Mr. Waronker asked them to take to rooftops with walkie-talkies before Halloween in 2006. He wanted to avoid a repetition of the previous year’s troubles, when students had been pelted with potatoes and frozen eggs. “You control the heights, you control the terrain,” he explained.

“I said, if you go on a roof, you’re not covered,” said Jacqueline Williams, the leader of the teachers’ union chapter, referring to teachers’ insurance coverage.

When it's bureaucrat versus leader, bureaucracy often delays, diverts, dissuades and outlasts even the best leadership.

[reformedliberal]

I love him! What a mensch!!!! Brilliant and handsome, too!

[AmericaUnited]

What they need Joe Clark, the BAT WIELDING principal from Kennedy High school in Paterson, NJ.

[wideawake]

Chill out Mr. Principle, dude. Go back to school and learn English.

Calm down, Rudder dude. Go back to school and learn to spell "principal."

[kenavi]

Go back to school and learn English.

Mr. "Principle" huh?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I thought this line was most telling:

Mr. Waronker has divided the school into eight academies, a process that has led to some venomous staff meetings, as teachers sparred over who got what resources and which students.

I thought modern academics said that competition was base and crass. Then why fight over resources and students?

[TruthConquers]

Modern Academics = High Priests of Hypocrisy

You sure nailed that one.

[BBell]

“Some parents at J.H.S. 22, also called Jordan L. Mott, were suspicious, viewing Mr. Waronker as too much an outsider. In fact, one parent, Angie Vazquez, 37, acknowledged that her upbringing had led her to wonder: “Wow, we’re going to have a Jewish person, what’s going to happen? Are the kids going to have to pay for lunch?”

Some much wrong with this lady.

[Rudder]

I don’t think I ever learned the difference between principal and principle. I’m like so flustered.

[3AngelaD]

A memory aid: the principal is your pal.

[6SJ7]

What a great story. What a great principle!

[3AngelaD]

Best quote of the whole story: In fact, one parent, Angie Vazquez, 37, acknowledged that her upbringing had led her to wonder: “Wow, we’re going to have a Jewish person, what’s going to happen? Are the kids going to have to pay for lunch?”

How can you run a school when the parents are such parasites they can't imagine having to feed their own kids?

[SoftballMominVA]

Back in Crown Heights, Mr. Waronker says he occasionally finds himself on the other side of a quizzical look, with his Hasidic neighbors wondering why he is devoting himself to a Bronx public school instead of a Brooklyn yeshiva.

“We’re all connected,” he responds.

Gesturing in his school at a class full of students, he said, “I feel the hand of the Lord here all the time.”

What a beautiful spirit in this man. I pray the Lord blesses him, his teachers, and students as he tries valiantly to show kids there is another world outside the crime ridden ghetto.

[SoftballMominVA]

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I'm with the band though! Who says band geeks can't have fun?!

[Albion Wilde]

Reminds me of that wonderful movie about gang kids in LA who were taught calculus by a teacher, Jaime Escalante, who believed in them: Stand and Deliver.

[Ole Okie]

Yas! I am stuned by the erudition displayed on this thread. My beeber is stuned, too.

[jocon307]

Good article, thanks for posting it.

I wish the principal well, he seems to be doing a lot of good.