Principals Bring Experience, Ideas to New Academic Year

After finishing college, the best job he could hope for in his native Tennessee was driving a truck for $32 a week, William Lowery recalled.

Destination? Los Angeles, where he landed his first job teaching physical education at an elementary school. “I had to go,” he said.

Looking back from his new position as principal of Albert Einstein High School in North Hills, the 62-year-old Lowery doesn’t regret it. Ever since college, he knew he wanted to teach.

He received a bachelor’s degree in physical education and sociology from Knoxville College in Tennessee and a master’s degree in education and urban schools from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Lowery worked as assistant principal for student services at Henry Clay Middle School in Los Angeles. As Einstein’s principal, he now oversees a small continuation campus of 50 students in the ninth through 12th grades.

“It’s very rewarding to be an administrator,” he said. “You get to help kids.”