High School’s New Principal Sets the Tone

A funny thing happened to educator Sylvia Rousseau on her way to a job as a principal in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

She got plucked out of the district by Santa Monica High School to be its new principal, replacing resigning Bernard (Nardy) Samuels. She will be the first African-American and the first woman to lead the school. She was chosen over nearly 80 other candidates by a panel of teachers, parents, students, administrators, staff and community representatives.

“I felt wanted ,” Rousseau said Tuesday, wrapping up five years as assistant principal at George Washington Preparatory High School in the Athens area of South Los Angeles. “Although I was ‘encouraged’ that something would open within LAUSD, I started to explore options rather than just waiting,” she said. She was a finalist in the competition for principal at the Hamilton High School Complex last year, but lost out to an administrator from San Bernardino County.

Rousseau, 54, whose selection was announced late last week, said she began to feel “tied” to the Westside school as she moved through a series of interviews. “It was clear that what they were looking for was a good match with what I could bring,” she said.

At first glance, Washington and Santa Monica have little in common. One is in the inner city and poor, the other practically on the beach and considerably more affluent. But Rousseau said that all major urban high schools share the same problems and that she will tackle Santa Monica’s in much the way she did at Washington.

In fact, the schools are similar in size, and Santa Monica High is by no means an all-white school. Of its 2,500 students, about 46% are Anglo, 32% are Latino, 10% are black and 10% are Asian. Washington High’s enrollment of 2,900 is about 75% black and 25% Latino.

At Washington, Rousseau has worked with teachers to develop an instructional improvement plan, initiated a conflict-resolution training program for students, and secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants for such projects as creating “drug-free zones” in the school’s tough neighborhood. The school is attractive, orderly and free of graffiti, and the majority of its graduates are headed for college.

“I’ll need five people to fill (Rousseau’s) shoes,” said Washington Principal Marguerite P. La Motte. “They got the top of the line. . . . But I’m happy to see her go where she can grow and develop. She deserves it.”

During an earlier stint at Washington in the mid-’80s, Rousseau played a role in a renaissance that took place at the school and some of its feeder campuses. Rousseau said she was influenced by Harvard educator Ron Edmonds, whose research showed that academic achievement is not nearly so tied to socioeconomic status as to such factors as the principal’s vision, performance-based testing, parent involvement and clear expectations.

“No school today escapes the reality of gangs or guns or violence,” she said, “but we have to work every day to make students understand that school is where learning takes place, . . . and that gang activity is not tolerated,” she said. “A tone can be set.”

Rousseau was born in Cincinnati. Her father was a mail carrier who worked extra jobs to support the family, and her mother was a school secretary. Her grandmother was a schoolteacher, as are several aunts and uncles.

“I was brought up with the philosophy that ‘You are one of the privileged ones and you have an opportunity to go higher. Remember it is never intended to separate you from your people; it is a tool to give more service. . . .’ I carry a great deal of pride that I am an African-American,” she said, “but I try to be of service whatever the culture, while never forgetting my own.”

Rousseau lives in Inglewood with her husband, the Rev. Algie Rousseau, a minister with the Christian Church Disciples of Christ. They have five grown children, and Rousseau said raising a family has given her a parent’s perspective as well as that of a teacher and administrator. “There are a lot of misconceptions on both sides,” she said.

Except for a brief stint as a medical technician, Rousseau has spent her life in education. She attended the University of Cincinnati and was one of the first black women to graduate from Wake Forest College in North Carolina. She holds a master’s degree from Cal State Los Angeles and next month will take her exams for a doctorate from Pepperdine University.

“The first day I stepped into a classroom, I knew that was where I belonged,” Rousseau said. She has taught in Kokomo, Ind., Cincinnati and Montgomery County, Md., and since coming to Los Angeles in 1978, at Monroe, Roosevelt and Dorsey high schools. She has been assistant principal at Hamilton and Washington, and directed Project Ahead, a parent education program involving 10 Los Angeles schools with high minority enrollments.

Rousseau appears to be a take-charge kind of person, but describes herself as “a team innovator. It does little good to make it to the goal line leaving bodies strewn on the field,” she said. “It may take a little longer, but it is important to build a common vision and try to get there together.”

She assumes her new post July 1.