Philly principal turns around his school--and his students' futures
Aug. 05, 2020
Most educators practise not conclude their time with students past saying "I love you."
Richard Gordon IV is non most educators.
So on a recent summer morning Zoom check-in, it surprised none of the v students he'd assembled when he ended the call past saying: "I honey you, I miss you, text me later!"
Simply even if he hadn't said information technology, the kids feel Gordon's devotion to them every day.
"He always tells me he'due south proud of me," says rising senior Jalen Paden. "I never had a good relationship with my principal before, but Mr. Gordon checks upward on me and keeps me motivated. He's open and honest and helpful."
"Mr. Gordon is like a father figure to me," says boyfriend rising senior Mujaheed Muhammed. "I could play effectually a lot, but Mr. Gordon always keeps me on the right path."
Father Effigy
Gordon's proper name appears in local media coverage oft. Near recently, this summer he was named the 2020-21 State Principal of the Twelvemonth by the Pennsylvania Principals Association. He scored a perfect 100 pct on near every metric in the nearly recent Philadelphia Academy of School Leader's 2022 teacher survey, which is compiled by the Neubauer Fellowship in Educational Leadership.
Just Gordon is more an award magnet: With nearly 25 years of urban instruction experience, he'south got the depth and expertise to validate the attention he attracts.
Amidst other accomplishments, he turned Paul Robeson High Schoolhouse for Human Services, a schoolhouse with a 90-percent poverty rate and 100-percent minority population and i that the District had been planning to shut in 2013, into i with a 95-percent graduation rate.
His success tin be attributed to the formal programming he'southward put in place—from mental wellness counseling to career mentorship to partnerships with Philly's institutions of college ed. But his progress all comes back to his unique gift of empathy.
"I am my students. I know exactly what they experience," he says. "I understand what it means to come into a house total of cocaine and marijuana and strange people all over the house doing drugs. I know what it means to be a child of divorce and to come up from a broken abode. My begetter went to jail when I was in 7th grade, and then I didn't encounter him again until tenth grade, so later on tenth grade I didn't encounter him again until my junior year of college. I totally go the feel."
Forging Connections
Gordon was working at the old Promise Academy at Roberts Vaux High School and SDP headquarters when he was tapped, in 2013, to serve as principal of Robeson, the 2-story brick building at 41st and Ludlow.
"When I first got to Robeson, it was a community that felt fractured," he says. Then just as his peers in the business organization sector would do, he created a school-wide mission. "It's nearly putting kids first," he says. "You can't work for me at Robeson unless you believe that and yous actualize that every single day in our building. Nosotros work together to ensure that our students understand that everything we practise is geared toward their welfare and well-existence."
The schoolhouse is a stone'due south throw from Penn, Drexel and the Science Centre; Gordon was shocked to come to the school and find out that none of them had a presence in that location. He got to piece of work changing that, and forging countless other connections for students. He secured opportunities for students to enroll in college-level classes at Community College of Philadelphia (CCP), Penn, Drexel. Among other programs, ascent senior Saniah Aaron participates in a medical inquiry internship program at CHOP.
"Mr. Gordon is ever looking for programs and different mentorships or internships that are going to help u.s.a.," Aaron says. "He knows his students, so he'south going to tell you most a program that he knows will be a good fit for you."
The list of opportunities he's cultivated rivals that of many private contained schools. Notably, as he'd washed at Vaux, he established a mental health programme that students readily employ for grouping and individual therapy.
"When I brought the idea to Robeson, information technology simply blew up like gangbusters," he says.
Gordon has a mental health background, having worked equally the weekend manager at a mental wellness hospital program in Baltimore County; he believes in its importance and is aware of the hurdles around it. "One of the things that happens in minority communities is that at that place's a stigma with regard to mental health support. Still in our school, it's not something kids are ashamed of—they talk about going to therapy the same mode they talk nigh going to lunch."
And while Superintendent Dr. William Hite and SDP have been committed to rolling out mental health support in schools, Robeson has been doing it for 5 years, exceeding initial capacity; they now take a full-time therapist in their edifice five days a week, as well as a part-time therapist and an intern. "Having had the opportunity to merge the two entities—educational activity and mental healthcare—has really worked wonders for our students," he says.
Build Your Own Brand
The Robeson motto is "build your ain brand." What information technology means comes down to this, says Gordon: Tell us what y'all want to practise, and we will help y'all find a pathway in that location. Information technology's how Robeson individualizes school for students and makes it a place they want to come from all over the metropolis.
Students who express an interest in higher must utilise to 5 of them. Every student is required to employ to CCP. ("We want to make certain 100 percent of our students are accustomed and so that you have an option," Gordon explains.) Anyone who plans to go into the workforce must meet on Fridays with Russell A. Hicks, the head of Ebony Suns LLC.
"No affair what people become through at home, what people go through outside of school, you'll come to schoolhouse every twenty-four hours, you'll see Mr. Gordon right there, fix to milk shake your paw, give you a hug, and that puts a smile on your face."
Gordon has a line item for Hicks each year in his budget, to go on him on contract as a business consultant. Funding for Mr. Hicks and other programs comes from Gordon'due south creative budgeting and the budget increases the school has received as enrollment has grown. They started in 2022 with but over 250 students; over the past six years, they've averaged more than 305.
Hicks takes 11th and 12th grade students to visit and larn from local businesses and leaders, from welders to barbershop owners. He helps students write business plans and make connections.
One educatee shared his dream of NASCAR racing; to Gordon's delight, Hicks got the student connected to a professional race team, and that student is now preparing to start on the amateur excursion when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. Another student joined the Marines, and recently stood baby-sit over John Lewis's body during funeral proceedings in Montgomery.
"That's a Robeson kid. He graduated from a school that wasn't supposed to be and he's in the throes of history right now," Gordon says, getting choked up. "I'm then proud of this kid."
Gordon believes in his program so much that he fifty-fifty invited his own niece, Makayla Harris, to enroll in the schoolhouse. Later on struggling with bullying for her entire schoolhouse career from kickoff grade on, she's thrived for her 4 years at Robeson, and recently graduated.
"It's actually like a sanctuary," says Muhammed. "No matter what people go through at home, what people go through outside of school, you'll come up to school every day, you'll see Mr. Gordon right there, set up to milk shake your hand, give you a hug, and that puts a smile on your face up. The vibe in that school is genuine, and Mr. Gordon always looks out for you and your family unit, no matter what."
Earlier he came to Robeson, Muhammed says that all he actually valued was athletics. "Mr. Gordon put me in a reckoner scientific discipline plan, and now that's what I started to value more. At present I have something else to autumn back on if football doesn't work."
Coming to the Table
A promotional YouTube video for Robeson shows a wall of snacks that Gordon keeps in his office; students regularly wander in, for Cheez-Its and frosted animal crackers. Sometimes, Gordon volition guild pizza for students. "I'll sit at my desk and do my work, but at the same time I'm watching them eat and talk, and they are hilarious, and I can run across the stress and anger and frustration melt off of them, just from the simple thought that they can take a intermission, in school, and be themselves. Everything is non well-nigh academics every moment of the twenty-four hour period. We are investing in people. And that motivates them to want to work hard and do their best."
Gordon is outside the building every unmarried morning time, welcoming his kids, rain or smoothen. On the first twenty-four hour period of school, he hires a DJ. Every student in the building has Gordon'due south prison cell telephone number—and they use it. If, say, a pupil gets thrown out of her home at one in the morning time, he can't go and option her upward, but he can arrange for an Uber to bring her to another friend or family fellow member's abode, to keep her safe until the schoolhouse can piece of work with her the next morning time.
"Information technology takes a lot of time, a lot of investment, a lot of creativity," Gordon says. "I'm constantly working, day, night, weekend. But it'southward worth the investment. We cannot ask kids to come up to school every day knowing that they have four other problems that, quite frankly, are more of import than schoolhouse."
Where many students in wealthier areas can prioritize school, Gordon has an Honor Society student who's had to cede her grades to pick up more hours at work, to take care of a parent with a disability; he has a student who needs permission to arrive a total 90 minutes after the showtime bong, to accommodate the fact that she gets her younger siblings to school while her mother struggles with substance abuse.
"I accept such amazing kids, and I accept the all-time staff who understands everything I'm trying to do for them," he says.
One thing he won't do: let them off easy.
"Y'all can't piece of work for me at Robeson unless y'all believe that and you lot actualize that every single day in our building," Gordon says. "We work together to ensure that our students understand that everything we do is geared toward their welfare and well-being."
He pushes them because he feels he is them, has been in their shoes. Growing up in Camden, New Jersey, Gordon'due south parents divorced when he was viii. When he was in seventh grade, his father, with whom he'd been living afterwards the split up, didn't come dwelling one night. Gordon took information technology upon himself to secure food from a neighbor for himself and his younger blood brother, keeping information technology warm over candles. The adjacent morning, he got his brother, and so himself, off to school. When his father didn't return the next night, Gordon sought out Dad's ex-girlfriend, and learned that his male parent was in jail—with no sign of making bail.
He called his mother, who was living in Philly, and moved in with the woman who would go on to wake up at 5am every twenty-four hour period to make sure Gordon still fabricated it on time to his school in New Bailiwick of jersey. Information technology was in New Jersey, during a twelfth grade civics course at Pennsauken High School, where Gordon realized he wanted to be a teacher.
"I had this teacher, Richard Sia, and he was absolutely hilarious and weird and strange, and difficult too. He had a hard class, it was difficult, it was challenging, merely you didn't feel like it was stressful. He provided the rigor, the entertainment, the humor," he says. One day Gordon looked upwardly and decided that's who I desire to be.
He'd get on to become just that, studying at Lincoln University and working in three big urban school districts—-Baltimore, D.C., Philly—-as a teacher and ambassador. He spent two years in the function of alternative education with SDP, and was the main of the sometime Vaux HIgh School before it closed. He's seen start-hand the importance of restorative practices, the negative consequences of nil-tolerance policies, the trouble with suspensions that don't teach anyone annihilation.
"Consequences have to be learning experiences for our kids and then that they know how to correct it next time," he says, or how to accomplish out to an developed when they're in over their head. He believes strongly in mediation and collaboration, involving families and bringing everyone to his office table.
Merely he likewise knows what the real world is like: "What I try to impart to my students is that I understand, but at the finish of the day, the world doesn't terminate moving forward. And then it doesn't give you a built-in excuse not to be successful. Unfortunately, until the globe is fair, we still accept to live our lives. Then you tin can't permit yourself to live in excuses and I tin't accept excuses."
Investing in Schools
With 50 percentage of his graduates going on to college and the other fifty pct choosing the war machine or workforce, Robeson grads will continue to motility along with the world. And Gordon wants Philly, all of its sectors, to rally behind them. He's frustrated that the city is grappling with the same issues that accept been going on for decades. "What we current of air up doing is policing or managing poverty, rather than trouble-solving. And that'due south the problem," he says.
He believes the fashion to address poverty and its fallout—loftier school dropout rates, crime, gentrification that prices people out of neighborhoods—is to invest in anchor institutions, like schools.
"In club for municipalities to truly combat poverty, I believe there must be a collective customs will to invest in anchor institutions that serve the most impoverished and vulnerable communities, which are primarily communities of color," he says. "Schools are anchors of the neighborhoods they serve."
He holds Nashville, Tennessee, up equally a model: During the Obama era, that city used its stimulus money from the financial crisis turndown to invest in the renovation of buildings and defended itself to a coherent philosophy: Career Technical Education for all not-magnet schools, and workforce development partnerships and internships with business associations so that students could have existent-world experiences and potential task opportunities resulting from their training.
Philly, by contrast, didn't plan for the long term. "And so while Nashville continues to make strides in educational activity, Philadelphia is stuck in the aforementioned place where it's been for the most function over the last x, twenty years," he says.
He laments that, prior to Dr. Hite's arrival, SDP has been unable or unwilling to focus on the importance of capital improvements. His students, he feels, have done everything the District asks of them—and yet the school nonetheless operates without basic needs like air conditioning.
In recent months, Gordon has committed to various equity advocacy groups, to sharpen his ability to speak up on matters merely like this.
And while the system falters, he'll continue to do everything he can to turn things around for his students. With music and handshakes, with hugs and texts and I honey yous.
"There are challenges, don't get me wrong," he says. "But I remember those challenges are the things that make our students strong. They're stronger than we give them credit for."
Says Paden: "Mr. Gordon is the all-time master in the world—that'south all you gotta know."
Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/richard-gordon-robeson/
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