A few weeks ago, I wrote about the city’s plan to hire as many as eight executive principals, each with a $25,000 bonus, for next year.
Now thanks to a helpful commenter and confirmation from the Department of Education, we know who at least one of them is. The principal of Acorn Community High School, Andrea Lewis, is leaving to become the interim acting executive principal of Murry Bergtraum High School in lower Manhattan. As an executive principal, she’ll receive a $25,000 yearly bonus for agreeing to lead the struggling school for at least three years.
Lewis took over at Acorn Community in 2003 and described herself to InsideSchools — a parent-focused guide to the city’s public schools — as “a very procedure-driven person.” In the last three years, the school’s city-issued progress report grades have been gone B, A, B. In 2007 Acorn Community, which has just 700 students, had a four-year graduation rate of 68 percent and in 2009 the rate was 65.3 percent. Acorn Community’s assistant principal, Andrea Piper, will run the school next year.
With more than 2,600 students, Murry Bergtraum represents a major change for Lewis. Once a desirable destination for students interested in business, Bergtraum swelled in size and declined in performance in recent years as large schools nearby were closed.
Bergtraum’s chapter leader, John Elfrank-Dana, said he hoped the school leadership team would still go through the C30 process in which a committee of parents, students, and teachers interviews principal candidates in September.
“We’ve got at least one person we want to nominate ourselves,” Elfrank-Dana said. “We definitely want to interview some people.”