Nobel Aspirations: Bronx Science's First Woman Principal Prepares to Lead

Leon N. Cooper, Melvin Schwartz, Sheldon L. Glashow, Steven Weinberg and Russell A. Hulse all won Nobel Prizes. Like E.L. Doctorow, Joseph Lelyveld, Kwame Ture, Robert A. Moog (the inventor of the Moog), William Safire, Jon Favreau from Swingers and myself, all five of them graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. n They've also never administered a school, and would probably never credibly argue that they could. Yet another of our number, a 1970 graduate named Harold O. Levy, possessed last fall of a sort of blood-and-soil Bronx Science jingoism, decided that only an epochal, planet-smashing scholar was fit to helm one of the country's most distinguished high schools. Perhaps even a Nobel laureate.

Since Levy occupies a position of greater consequence to the school than most graduates, his preference entailed the hamstringing and eventual departure of Bronx Science's chosen principal, William Stark, which led to a hemorrhage of wrath from parents, faculty, administrators, alumni and newspaper editorial boards. And, after about nine months, it also led, however circuitously, to the elevation of the school's former assistant principal for biology, Valerie Reidy, to the position. Currently in the process of preparation?she spent the last two weeks attending, in essence, principal training camp?Reidy will tread past the school's gigantic foyer mosaic next month as Bronx Science's sixth principal in its 63-year history. She intends to hit the ground running, and has outlined plans to make the school into an incubator for the city's best teachers.

Diplomatically, Reidy takes an understanding and conciliatory stance when reflecting on the previous year's tumult, in which Schools Chancellor Levy demonstrated a willingness to direct the machinations of 75 W. 205th St. in the Bronx from 110 Livingston St. in Brooklyn. "I think Chancellor Levy truly felt the school would be well serviced by having a notable scientist affiliated," she tells me over the phone. "Where it went wrong on a day-to-day basis [was] a school such as ours?any school?needs an educator to set curriculum policy, deal with union matters, look at budget issues, adolescent psychology, pedagogy. All kinds of things need to be done [and require] someone who has an education background."

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Principal Stanley Blumenstein announced his retirement at the beginning of the 1999 term. Following Board of Education protocol, a committee of union representatives, alumni, faculty and parents waded through 24 applicants for Blumenstein's job before deciding on one of the school's own: assistant principal for administration William Stark, who'd spent more than 30 years at Bronx Science, starting as a teacher and working his way upward. To my recollection, Stark always commanded respect, even from sullen and obnoxious teenagers. He was always Mr. Stark, unlike countless teachers and nearly every other administrator. The committee picked Stark unanimously and sent his name for the anticipated rubber-stamping by Bronx high schools superintendent Norman Wechsler. Since approval was a simple formality, Stark took the reins last August as interim acting principal. But Wechsler and Levy instructed the committee to find a new candidate, arguing that a school with more Nobel laureates in its alumni roster than any other American high school required a prestigious scholar to lead it?and implying, therefore, that Stark wasn't sufficiently qualified. Neither man articulated how the virtues of distinguished research scholarship translated into negotiating with teachers, custodians, unions, 2700 students in the midst of postpubescent psychosis or, for that matter, 110 Livingston St. In January, after a meeting at Bronx Science to discuss educational reform and more than two months of indecision, Levy explained to a Daily News reporter that leading Bronx Science "is not just a New York City job...it's a job with a national perspective."

By February, Stark had suffered numerous indignities. Levy officially appointed him to an interim principal post he already held. The Chancellor commissioned a team of Nobel laureates to determine what changes Bronx Science needed. Wechsler suggested the school's luster was fading, telling the Riverdale Press, "There are some people who feel that over the past number of years, the school may have had more of a challenge in competing with Stuyvesant." In the parlance of Science's long-running competition with its Chambers St. foil, a rebuke like that from the superintendent is like a silverback gorilla's aggression ritual. Finally, Wechsler broke ranks with Levy and offered Stark the job, only to learn that Stark had accepted an offer to become principal of Manhasset High School on Long Island for significantly more money and significantly less aggravation.

Suddenly, one of the city's best high schools became a metaphor for the failings of the Board of Education: rigid, tin-eared bureaucratic micromanagement had cost Bronx Science one of its most capable administrators, who opted for greener pastures and fatter paychecks in the suburbs, over cries from those who create Bronx Science's facts on the ground. And it had still not found the school a principal. Levy took Wechsler off the job and delegated the task to Rose DePinto, superintendent of the city's high schools. Former principal Vincent Galasso returned to Science as interim principal. Not a single Nobel laureate applied for the position?only one candidate came from out of state for a job with "national perspective."

And that's where Valerie Reidy came in. Last month, Levy announced Reidy would become Science's first female principal. Although she holds no Nobel Prize, Levy spokeswoman Karen Finney announced, "[W]e found real gold at home." So after a year of tectonic shift in the northwest Bronx, normalizing relations with the Board of Education and improving the quality of a Bronx Science education falls on Reidy's shoulders. She's eager to talk about what she has in store.

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"Bronx Science needs to get back to what we're good at?education," Reidy says from her Westchester home. She's spent the day running between Science and the Board of Ed's meetings for the city's principals, which focus on "school safety, management acquisition, the arts" and other issues, and she delays dinner for a while to talk with me.

In September, the school will open a teacher resource center, retrofitting a room on the building's first floor with technology more modern than the Board of Ed's usual three-generation tech retardation. The union-funded center will train teachers to incorporate new technological approaches into their pedagogy and will serve as a nexus for general improvement and reinvigoration among the faculty. Describing Bronx Science's standards under her tenure as an "inquiry-approach discovery methodology utilizing the Socratic method," Reidy wants Bronx Science teachers to feel "comfortable and supported," attitudes that will lead them to improved classroom performance. Teachers will augment their skills by exchanging ideas, she reasons. "We have a strong veteran staff ready, willing and able to pitch in. We have a strong sense of family and community, and I want to maintain that... [S]tudents can only feel they're having the best possible experience when they have the best person for the job." After the day's classes end, Reidy's "master teacher" program will bring departed instructors back to the school to give lessons to greener, interested teachers.

How eager will teachers be for extra instruction after a grueling seven-plus hours of teaching? "People who go into teaching want to do the best possible job," Reidy responds. "They can and will seek out any sort of resources to help them do that." In the biology department she joined in 1978, teachers would throw around ideas for lesson plans past 6 p.m. on a Friday, "just talking to each other, asking questions, trying out new material."

Reidy paints a much different picture of the teachers who now work for her than the one we received over the past year during the United Federation of Teachers contract dispute, where editorials portrayed teachers as slothful, greedy incompetents content to let their students fester in ignorance while traipsing from municipal vacation day to municipal vacation day. "No pay in the world makes you feel better than having given a wonderful lesson," she says.

With eager and innovative teaching comes heightened student results, Reidy argues, and Bronx Science's advanced student body allows teachers the flexibility to provide a more Socratic education, which in turn engages students all the more. "Remember, at Bronx Science, students are coming in reading at the 12th grade level?if they just regurgitate [memorized information], why do they need to think? Why not send you home to read 15 pages with a quiz the next day?" An enriching education should "move class to the realm of concept rather than just giving factual information," she says, and with the reorganization of the state's Regents exams to "more concept-based questions," the state may see clear empirical data about how exportable her model of education is. Cutting her pedagogical teeth at the Bronx's Junior High School 117 convinced her that these ideas hold appeal and efficacy beyond the storied facade of Bronx Science.

Reidy has not yet met with Chancellor Levy. "I'm assuming his schedule is very busy," she says, although Levy gave a keynote address at the workshop program she attended. In the weeks before her first academic year as principal begins, she's met with the parents' association, the alumni association and the school's union representative, Richard Schweidel, a gruff, loud and abrupt disciplinarian in the social studies department whose students came into class intimidated and came out with the affection of soldiers for their commanding officer.

"Really, we're at a point where what's past is past and let's look to the future" Reidy says. She doesn't consider Bronx Science worn out or exhausted from its ordeal with Chancellor Levy. "It's not a fatigue or an exhaust?I think we're very strong, the school is in good shape. From the cards, letters and comments [I've received] I feel very strongly supported already."

And to think, she's not even a Nobel laureate.