Principal’s Innovation Gave School a Chance

School principal Howard Lappin believes that perseverance and teamwork can accomplish miracles. He’s proved it during his 12 years at South-Central Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, a kindergarten through 12th-grade public school for 3,400 students.

In 1989, Lappin found himself reassigned to Foshay, one of the lowest-performing, unruliest schools in the district. Its dropout rate was 22%. Nearly 400 students were suspended each year. Some carried knives; frightened teachers locked their classroom doors. And lunchtime brawls were routine. Worst of all, the State Department of Education warned that if Foshay’s performance wasn’t immediately improved, it would cut off funding and send a trustee to take over the school.

Lappin, armed with innovative ideas and moxie, rescued Foshay from failure. Today, as a result of his efforts, Foshay has been named a California Distinguished School and is ranked as one of the nation’s top 100 public high schools by Newsweek magazine. Its dropout rate has plummeted to about 3.5%. All students in its most recent senior class received acceptances to college. And its grads are attending Harvard, Yale and Cornell.

But Lappin recalls a very different scenario when he took over as principal for the school he then described as “educationally bankrupt.”

“All my friends gave me their condolences,” he said. “But when you get a promotion, you go where they transfer you. I drove around to look at the community. I walked through the school, and I almost cried.”

However, Lappin prides himself in not being a quitter.

Many principals, when faced with such bedlam, might be tempted to shift into Napoleon mode: they’d become steely dictators, demanding blind obedience from their staff and students. But Lappin had seen that tactic fail too many times.

Instead, the Northridge resident took a radically different approach: He urged his school’s “stakeholders”--its teachers, parents and students--to join him in participatory decision-making. He took his staff on a weekend retreat “to look at where we were going.” He listened and observed.

“You can’t do it yourself,” Lappin said. “I don’t teach--I have to provide an atmosphere so teachers can teach. Any principals who think they can do it all themselves are crazy.”

But not all stakeholders were enthused about Lappin and his plans. Some parents were angered that a white principal had been put in charge of a school with a nearly 100% minority student body. They were reluctant to trust him. Many students were less than thrilled about Lappin’s “no-nonsense” attitude. And even a few teachers balked at some of the draconian measures and sweeping changes he favored.

“They transferred out,” Lappin said. “Some didn’t like me or the pressure.”

Other teachers such as Craig Reuss, Foshay’s math department chairman and head of its Academy of Finance, gave Lappin a chance, even if it wasn’t entirely voluntary.

When Reuss arrived at Foshay, just months after the new principal had taken over, he wanted to bail out. Reuss had discovered that he was replacing a teacher who’d been struck with a chair by students; the teacher had gone on disability. Reuss told Lappin he intended to leave. But Lappin refused to sign his transfer papers.

“He asked me to give it a month,” said Reuss, a 30-year teaching veteran. “He said, ‘if after that time, you still want to leave, I’ll approve it.’ ”

Reuss reconsidered after watching Lappin in action. He liked the principal’s innovative approach to problems. True to his word, Lappin encouraged participatory management. He urged teachers to show him how they could best do their jobs. And he aggressively cut through red tape, particularly when it threatened students’ learning needs, Reuss said.

“He’d say, ‘this may not be what the district requires, but let them write me up,’ ” Reuss said.

With stakeholders’ aid, Lappin, a self-described strict disciplinarian, began to impose rigid order upon chaos.

No longer could Foshay teachers condone “social promotions,” in which they permitted failing students to move up a grade. Instead, they gave the students a chance to build academic skills through after-school and Saturday tutoring.

“These are the kids who society says can’t learn, who they sometimes would like to forget,” Lappin said. “We know that these kids can learn, and we’ve been struggling to prove that ever since I got here.”

Lappin also initiated a “TNT program”--Tolerate No Tardies--at Foshay. Students caught loitering in the halls would have to cool their heels in a detention room. School uniforms became required and gang-type accessories and clothing were banned.

More innovations followed. Foshay became one of the first Los Angeles schools to participate in a novel reform plan. Through it, Foshay became a semiautonomous campus; now Lappin and his staff could make decisions about curriculum innovations and hiring without district intercession. The plan also allowed Lappin to transform Foshay, then a middle school, into a K-12 learning center, so students could remain on campus.

But Foshay still desperately needed funding, technology, supplies and services to stay afloat. Lappin’s teachers needed training, too. To secure these, Lappin would have to take on two new roles: fund-raiser and pitchman.

He set up a grant-writing team to solicit aid for the school. California education officials were impressed by his innovative ideas for the school.

Within a short time, they approved a $1.5-million state restructuring grant for Foshay. In ensuing years, Lappin would secure enough funding to build a Product Development Center (with computers, scanners and video editing equipment) and a $1 million state-of-the-art library that touts 33,000 books.

Lappin also approached potential service providers--corporations and educational institutions--on behalf of Foshay. USC, which is near the school, was one of Lappin’s first stops.

“I said, ‘here’s a school right next to you that’s failing. Can you help?’ ”

USC administrators did. They provided free Internet access to Foshay, encouraged their MBA students to volunteer as reading tutors (more than 100 do today), assisted Lappin in setting up a dental clinic and established a program in which USC psychiatric interns offer family counseling at Foshay. USC-affiliated California Hospital now provides free medical services to students at Foshay’s new 2,300-square-foot health clinic.

Santa Monica-based Candle Corp., a global software and services company, helped, too.

It sent employees to teach at Foshay’s Technology Academy, and offered paid internships at its headquarters to Foshay’s top technology students.

“He’s very passionate, persevering and not afraid to roll up his sleeves and go out to get necessary resources,” said Genethia Hudley-Hays, board president of the Los Angeles Unified School District. “He does not wait for the central office to tell him he can have the resources. He’s a self-starter. But I think the most important thing about him is, he truly wants to be successful.”

Successful Lappin has been. Over the last few years, he has won a litany of accolades. He was named principal of the year by the Assn. of California Administrators; nominated national principal of the year; and celebrated by Reader’s Digest as a “Hero of Education.”

Still, there are more challenges ahead for Lappin and his staff. New student arrivals at Foshay often come with serious problems. On average, Lappin said, sixth-graders matriculating from other schools read at third-grade levels. Foshay teachers must quickly get them up to speed.

Whereas a decade ago, many South-Central families wished their children could enroll anywhere but Foshay, today they compete for severely limited openings at the school.

There’s much to celebrate. There’s a waiting list for teachers who want to work at the school. Students in every age group boast amazing metamorphoses. A new chapter in Lappin’s life is about to begin. The principal will soon complete his doctoral studies at USC. Afterward, perhaps in three years, he hopes to retire from Foshay, then devote himself to teaching educators and administrators how to improve children’s learning experiences and run schools effectively. He also hopes to do some institutional counseling.

“My dream is for Foshay to not be so special,” he said. “My inborn belief is this: Kids can learn and teachers want to teach. If we sit down together, we can think smarter.”

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Class Act

Howard Lappin, principal of Foshay Learning Center in South-Central Los Angeles, has been able to orchestrate dramatic turnaround for his school in the last few years. Through his efforts, Foshay has become a model in educational reform. But Lappin attributes his success to teamwork. Only with the participation and commitment of stakeholders (teachers, parents and students) can a school become great, he says.

Here are his tips for others in his line of work:

1. Believe in your staff and involve them in decision-making.

2. Continue to study and learn.

3. Be visible, so everyone knows you.

4. Create an environment that is physically pleasing.

5. Remember that you are just an enabler of others in their quest to teach.