Hope and Education

The University of California will open Principal Leadership Institutes at UC Berkeley and UCLA next summer to train educators who are committed to working in poorly performing urban schools.

How important is a principal in turning around a problem school? As Exhibit A, we offer Joan Elam.

Elam was principal of James Monroe High School in North Hills for 11 years before she retired in August. Monroe is not an easy school to lead. It is bursting at the seams, with 4,200 students attending classes year-round on different tracks. Many students come from impoverished families. More than one-third consider English to be their second language.

Students have to walk through tough neighborhoods to get to campus; just last spring, a 16-year-old who’d studiously avoided gangs was shot and killed by gangbangers. Understandably, many kids have a lot of other things on their minds besides school.

But step on campus, and from the wood-paneled mock courtroom in the law and government magnet school to the shop class where students build race cars--and crew for the teacher on weekends--there is something at Monroe to interest even the least-motivated student.

There are Police and Fire Academy magnet schools, a culinary program that has sent graduates off to prestigious cooking schools and an insurance class, where graduates, even if they don’t go on to work in the industry, come out understanding the ins and outs of health, life and disability insurance, which is more than can be said about most of us.

Throughout the campus--and across the neighborhood--are murals painted by Monroe art students. There’s a day-care center for children from the community, staffed by Monroe seniors who study child psychology and nutrition, and another for the children of Monroe students, which offers parenting classes. There are even a putting green and a driving range where Monroe students, who are not exactly from country club neighborhoods, can practice to be the next Tiger Woods.

And that’s in addition to the four foreign languages taught and the advanced placement classes.

Elam describes herself as a facilitator who, when a teacher came to her with a good idea, found a way to do it, often by tapping community and business resources. Her can-do attitude kept teachers enthusiastic, which in turn helped engage students.

She’s received numerous honors, including LAUSD’s Principal of the Year award and an American Hero in Education award from Reader’s Digest. But Elam’s most lasting tributes are the students who have graduated and who will continue to graduate from Monroe High.

Can the Principal Leadership Institutes turn out more Joan Elams? If so, there is hope for public education after all.