By Alex Mikoulianitch

Megan Adams Photo By Bess Adler

Megan Adams’ journey to becoming the award-winning principal of one of the leading middle schools in New York City is a story about pursuing one’s dreams and beliefs.

Born in Wisconsin and raised in Nebraska by parents who were both teachers, Adams had an inside view of the educator’s profession from a young age. She attended the University of Iowa for her undergraduate degree and eventually decided to participate in a program called Teach for America.

The program gave her an opportunity to teach at the elementary school level, and that is when she became certain of the career choice she would pursue.

“I realized what an impact it could have at the level of education, and [I realized] after a few years in a classroom my calling really was to remain in education,” Adams said.

Adams decided to direct this impact toward a specific age group, one she felt was crucial in shaping youth’s view of education.

“It was originally because I was placed in a fifth grade classroom, but I started to realize very quickly the impact of the middle school years and how important that time is in capturing a child and having them believe in themselves and invest in education or losing them,” Adams said.

Adams graduated from Columbia University’s Teaching School’s Educational Leadership program and got a hand from her mentor, who set her up with an interview for a position at the NYC Lab School, which at the time functioned as a grades 6-12 school. There she was able to get a job as an assistant principal, and a year into her tenure, the school split into two: a high school and middle school. A principal position opened up at the middle school, and Adams promptly applied and secured the position.

Now, five years into being principal, Adams has established a routine that helps her lead a high-achieving school even further.

She arrives at the school at around 6:30 a.m., taking care of any emails and similar correspondence. Then she heads outside to the front of the building to greet the students and their parents, answering any questions the parents may have and making sure there are no issues with the kids.

Then come the usual rounds of the building, making sure everything is in place and working properly. Then, in the afternoon, come the meetings with faculty, something she pays very close attention to.

“One of the goals of the school is that all of our teachers are also in leadership positions, so there’s a lot of meetings with faculty members on all the different things that they’ve taken charge of and are working on,” Adams said.

A unique aspect of the NYC Lab Middle School is their freedom from a set city curriculum. The faculty itself is in charge of that.

“One of the main things about our school is that the teachers are very empowered and they all develop their own curriculum, which I am very proud of, and I feel that they are experts in that,” Adams said.

These teacher responsibilities also come with high expectations, which are made known from the very beginning—the hiring process. All applications for a spot at the school are carefully considered, and candidates who stand out are allowed to do a demo-lesson, which is then analyzed along with the applicant, Adams said.

This dedication to bringing the best to the city’s educational system is what helped Adams achieve this year’s Blackboard Award.

“Our goal is that we prepare our kids for the top public high schools in the city,” Adams said. “I feel like one of the things [that helped contribute to receiving the award] is really living up to the mission and the values that we’re striving for in our school. We should never rest on the laurels of our school, but always keep pushing ourselves higher and making sure that we’re serving our population. So a lot of the work last year was bringing innovation into our school that would really serve the children better.”

Buzzwords and catchphrases such as “digital literacy” don’t mean much without dedicated, hard-working teachers like Andrew Adler to put them into practice.

Adler, 40, teaches eighth-grade humanities at the Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies, known for its pioneering role in ICT (Integrated Co-Teaching), wherein classes are co-taught by a general education specialist and a special education specialist (Adler’s role). About 40 percent of the students in Adler’s classes have learning disabilities.

Lab is outstanding, if not unique, in its insistence on both rigor and inclusion and in its ability to maintain high academic standards while integrating special needs students into nearly every class.

Adler’s approach is often cited for going beyond the call of duty; for example, he spends many after-school hours mentoring his students. But perhaps what makes him most representative of the school’s core values is his commitment to innovation.

Lab’s principal, Megan Adams, who hired him just over four years ago, said “Andy is constantly working to stay current on the research and strategies…which has a tremendous impact on both the classroom and the school.”

After an inauspicious start to his teaching career—he was assigned to a special ed classroom at a high school in California and simply instructed to keep the kids quiet and in their seats—Adler earned his master’s degree from George Washington University in 2002.
Idealistic and determined, he soon became convinced that all students have the capacity to learn, regardless of how severe their disabilities are. He developed a passion for so-called adaptive technologies—the use of up-to-date hardware and software to implement individualized education plans and increase one-on-one instruction time. His main thrust is to engage students who would otherwise be disengaged, to bring them back to school when they might be inclined to walk away in frustration.

“For students who struggle with reading,” he explained, “we need to help them build up their schema, which is a fancy word for background knowledge, so they can better understand the material being covered. We may show them a movie or use photos to help them access content.”

Many of Adler’s recent efforts have involved using the iBook Author program and iPads, adapting various historical source materials to different reading levels and learning styles. He also recently used Google Docs, which allows two users at their respective computer screens to work on the same file simultaneously, as a tutoring device, prompting a student through the difficult task of writing a paper, and in the process teaching him valuable research and presentation skills.

Adler was awarded a scholarship by the Bank Street College of Education to pursue a degree in school-building leadership, which he hopes will give him more ammunition in his ongoing quest to harness technology as a compelling educational tool. Call it digital literacy if you like, but from his perspective, it’s nothing more than using modern-day machines to teach the good old three Rs.

Adler counts as his biggest professional satisfaction “that moment when a student develops, presents, writes or comprehends something they never believed was possible. As a teacher, you don’t hit too many out of the park; you have to move your students around the bases. Every now and then, though, you get that perfect pitch, and you’re surprised.”