In Principal’s Office, a regular feature of SchoolBook, a city school principal is interviewed for insights into school management and the life of a school leader. What do you think makes a good principal? Join the conversation below.
Ronald J. Gorsky is the principal of Concord High School, a small transfer school on Staten Island for students who were not meeting their potential at other high schools in the borough.
In an interview, Mr. Gorsky, whose early training was in special education, said that when he joined the school in 2002, it was on a list of underperforming schools. It received an A in the last four progress reports, he says, but "we’re still trying to do a better job."
With 175 students and 12 teachers, the school can give students individual attention, he said, much like a mom-and-pop store with a small customer base. Mr. Gorsky, 52, had a salary of $150,000 in 2010. This interview was edited and condensed.
Q.
What is a transfer high school?
A.
Transfer schools serve the niche of kids who have either disengaged or disconnected from larger high schools. These kids may be flying under the radar, or have never felt comfortable and have been underachieving relative to their peers. They could have family issues, or they could have made poor choices in life. Typically they are over-age and undercredited.
Q.
How do students get accepted into Concord?
A.
Often they are referred by another school. We require the student and a parent or guardian to come for a conference. I spend about an hour with each student, reviewing all of the school records and having a conversation about goals. How can we engage them? What particular talents do they have?
We also talk about factors in their life that are going to affect their ability to be successful and how I can help them. We start off with that personalized relationship from Day 1 and we continue it through an adopt-a-student program.
Q.
Can you tell me about your background?
A.
I grew up in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn. I went to Canarsie High School and Brooklyn College. I was a special education major because it was something that I felt a great emotional connection with. I began teaching in a middle school. I then worked in Brooklyn high schools for 12 years, mostly with students with physical and emotional disabilities.
In the early 1990s, I piloted a program called Consultant Teacher, and I left to work at the central Department of Education to make this new program citywide. But I missed teaching. When the opportunity came here at Concord, I said, "This is my chance."
Q.
What was your role when you first joined Concord?
A.
I came here in 2002 as an assistant principal when the school was in the middle of a redesign. Seven years prior to 2002, this school had been under the state’s watchful eye on the SURR [Schools Under Registration Review] list of low-performing schools, so they changed the administration and a lot of the teaching staff.
The principal retired after two years, and I stepped into his shoes in 2004. In 2005, we came off the SURR list and we were on the city’s list of Schools in Need of Improvement. We came off the city’s list the next year.
Q.
So it was like being a part of a new school?
A.
Yes, but the challenge is that it feels like a new school every year. The average length of stay for a kid is about a year and a half. We have 175 students and, of those, about half are new in a given year. Last September, there were 66 new kids who had enough credits to graduate in June. Of those, 63 graduated.
It’s not like you have the same group of ninth-grade kids for four years. It’s a challenge because they still have that loyalty to their old school and old friends, so we have to have them develop Concord as an identity.
Q.
How do you do that?
A.
Fridays this year are Concord Spirit days, when the staff and students wear their Concord T-shirts, sweatshirts and sweat pants. We also had pajama day, twin day — when students and staff dress alike — wacky tacky Tuesday and dress for success day. Today happens to be pajama day, so I opted for my favorite Simpsons slippers.
Q.
How do you measure a student’s success in such a short time frame?
A.
We develop our own metric. For all new kids, what was their attendance and credits in their former school, and what was it this year, sort of before Concord and after Concord. If you compare year to year, that data is more meaningful than a lot of the data that gets reported city- and statewide.
Take, for instance, the four-year graduating cohort. That’s such a meaningless statistic for our school because we don’t have kids for four years. What’s important is that of 66 kids that started with me that could have graduated, 95 percent of them did.
Plus, we can see the amazing turnaround in the soft data when they are more engaged. The parents see their report cards and say, "I’ve never seen all these high grades. My kid has never been on the honor roll." That taste of success breeds a different type of motivation.
Q.
What are some of the goals for your students after graduation?
A.
We require everyone to apply to CUNY. Not everyone is going to college, but at least everyone should come out of here college ready or career ready.
Q.
How do you motivate your staff?
A.
They are so talented and flexible. With only 12 teachers, everyone’s doing multiple things. We have an attorney that teaches history and graphic design. Our culinary arts teacher sings so she teaches our music class. Our Spanish teacher leads our art class. Everyone’s in a position to share their talents with the kids.
Also, no one ever feels alone in this. We check in every week to discuss issues with the students and brainstorm. It’s really that collaborative effort.
Q.
What has surprised you the most about being a principal?
A.
I’m surprised by how strongly I feel, how passionate I am about trying to be there for every kid. It’s frustrating because it’s an emotional roller coaster. You invest so much of your time and energy into every student and, because we know them so well, it’s often stressful. It’s rewarding, but it’s not easy.
Q.
What challenges do you still face?
A.
We’re not a great school. We’re still trying to do a better job. We dedicate a huge amount of time and resources into trying to improve student attendance. We’re at about 75 to 78 percent attendance. It’s not acceptable.
Even if you’re at 80 percent attendance, that means a student could be absent one day a week and it presents gaps in instruction. So we have to make sure we’re on top of that.
Also, in 2002 we inherited the school’s name and reputation. The perception was this was a place you didn’t want to send your child to. So we have to really rebrand and market the school.
Q.
It almost sounds like you are talking about a business. Do you ever look at it that way?
A.
The analogy is you take these large box stores where you can buy a lot, but you go to a mom-and-pop store to get that connection. We’re the mom and pop store. You come here, people know you. The model is successful. It’s one reason why the D.O.E. is now breaking down larger high schools and opening up smaller ones.
Q.
How far have you come in changing the reputation at Concord?
A.
Not far enough. It helps when we get the progress report grade. We’ve gotten A’s all four years, and this year we were ranked No. 1 of the 48 transfer schools in the city.
I was thinking of changing the name of the school just to get a fresh start. But what’s in a name? People who visit us see first hand this is a good place. Parents say they would pay $20,000 a year to be here because it’s like a private school.
My thought is, if there are 20,000 high school kids on Staten Island — that’s a rough number — we only have 200. You mean to tell me there aren’t more kids that would benefit from a smaller, supportive environment? They should be knocking down the door to get here.