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.”

McCourt emceed all the Blackboard Award ceremonies until his death in 2009, and I have no doubt his words and wisdom still echo in the minds of many the educators—teachers and principals alike—who were there during those ceremonies. They certainly do in me. McCourt’s message was that only a teacher really knows what it’s like to stand in front of classroom full of kids and get them to learn something. He bristled about how the teaching profession was besieged by so-called experts telling teachers what to do, when many of the experts themselves were never teachers. Mostly, though, he expressed a lot of camaraderie, respect and dark-humored sympathy for his fellow educators.

Only Frank could say it like Frank, but we try to carry his message forth in our own way: hoping to express that you, our dedicated and talented local educators, are deeply appreciated by many around you, your colleagues, students and parents. Chances are it was one of them who put in the nomination for you or your school.

Originally founded by the leaders of Manhattan Media, Tom Allon and Richard Burns, the Blackboard Awards are dedicated to honoring excellence in local education wherever it exists—public, private, charter or parochial school. It humbles us to learn about the good work you do, and that, in turn, impassions us to get out the word.

Speaking for all my colleagues at Manhattan Media, I have two final words for you: Thank you.

—Eric Messinger, Editor, New York Family

2012 Blackboard Award Winners

West Side YMCA, Where Teachers and Parents Work Hand-in-Hand

Students Learn to ‘GELL’ at Village School

Nurturing the Whole Child at St. Stephen of Hungary

PS 199 Creates Lifelong Learners

Horace Mann: A Century of Quality Teaching in the Heart of the City

Character Counts at Harlem Village Academies

The Uncommon Way: Improving the Norm for Inner-City Students

Small Step From High School to College

A Blueprint for the Global School of the Future

The World Awaits at Leman School

Emphasis on Whole Child at Battery Park School

Prepping for a Bright Future at Winston Prep

Math and Sciences Under Microscope at High School

All the World’s a Stage at Performing Arts School

Opening the Doors to the Future for Students

Empowering Students and Teachers to Find their Voice

Tony Danza speaks of his new book and the rumor he’s running for mayor

By Angela Barbuti

Tony Danza went back to being the boss—but this time it was in front of a classroom. In 2009, the then almost 60-year-old actor decided to pursue his dream of becoming a teacher, taking on a high school English class in Philadelphia, which was filmed as a series on A&E. In I’d like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had, available on Sept. 11, he describes the journey with his class, which included a lot of laughter, and many tears. The West Side resident is now back in New York City and reveals that he’s working on a new scripted sitcom for ABC, and is not, contrary to rumors, running for mayor.

After your talk show was canceled, you followed your original career path, which was to teach. Why didn’t you go into teaching after college?
I think when I got out of school, I was not in the place where I thought I could teach anybody anything. I was also—I hate to say this about myself—a little immature. That’s partially why the title is what it is.

Your first class was filled with 26 tenth-graders. Do you keep in touch with your former students?
Alex was here this weekend; he came to visit me. I’m on email with a lot of them. Right now, a couple of the kids are having girl problems [laughs]. One of the things that really bothered me about only being there one year was that I ingratiated myself into these kids’ lives and then I was gone. I always felt bad about that. So I can’t help but keep in touch with them. I was there in June for their graduation.

Have they started college?
Only two of all the kids I was involved with—because I had another bunch of kids who were an unofficial advisory—aren’t going on to college or serious vocational training. I’m working on those two.

So your students were too young to watch Who’s the Boss.
They were born two years after the show was off the air! Later in the year, the show was playing on the Hallmark Channel, so the kids started to see me. I’d get comments like, “Jeez, Mr. Danza, you didn’t used to walk like that! [Laughs]

What’s harder, acting or teaching?
Teaching. [Pauses] Did I say it fast enough? Acting is not easy, but the responsibility of teaching, you can’t discount that. You’re responsible for 150 kids, but not only that, you’re responsible for their futures. [Pauses] I just think that’s such an unbelievable weight. I try to impress upon the kids that you only get one life, and you have to make the most of it.

Is it true you woke up at 4:20 each morning that year?
I started giving up on the 20. I thought I’d just get up at 4 and stop the baloney. I had it worked out so that if I woke up then, I could do a certain amount of exercising and get to school on time. I’m a physical fitness guy. I had a stationary bike, so I rode every morning and did my pushups.

You took your students to see West Side Story.
Yes I did! They had some knowledge of Romeo and Juliet, so they had a reference point. We talked afterwards about how they could relate it to their lives. You should have seen how it morphed into something about civics and your place in the neighborhood.

This piece is being published on the first day of school for NYC public schools. What advice would you give to first year teachers?
Breathe, Thanksgiving’s coming. [Laughs] But I’d rather give the kids advice. Know that being a good student and having a good time in high school is not mutually exclusive. Which means you can do both. Number two, get off to a good start. Much like a baseball player who starts the season in a slump, it’s very hard to pull your grades up as the year goes on. Number three, make sure that you understand that it is your job to get an education and to make the most of what your teachers are trying to give you.

You said on Twitter, “For the record, I will not be running for mayor.” How did this rumor start?
I was at a red carpet for Joseph Levitt’s movie Premium Rush. I’m in a movie with him that’s coming out next year. A journalist asked me if I ever thought of running for mayor. I think I said, “I don’t think I can stand the scrutiny and nobody’s asking me, but sure, why not.” This is a horrible thing, but the shooting at the Empire State Building happened to knock it off the news cycle. They were doing it every hour on the hour on both Fox and CNN. They were having a panel discussion about me being mayor! [Laughs] I loved it! I love New York.

What are your future plans?
I’m working on a sitcom for ABC and a musical for Broadway, Honeymoon in Vegas. I have a couple of things I’m trying to write, cause now I’m a writer.

To see episodes of Teach: Tony Danza, visit www.aetv.com/teach-tony-danza

Hill Krishnan.

Hill Krishnan may be the only candidate for City Council who can speak with equal passion about his theories on national military spending and the fusion of disco moves with traditional Indian dancing. A search for him on YouTube will reveal Krishnan asking U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron about the British government’s commitment to nonproliferation in the face of a nuclear-enabled Iranian government at an NYU forum, as well as a video of him exuberantly demonstrating the aforementioned dance moves. To say that’s he’s versatile is perhaps an understatement.

Krishnan first came to the Upper East Side by chance. He came from his native India 10 years ago to earn a master’s degree in ergonomics and biomechanics and had so little money that he initially spent nights sleeping in the library and showering in the gym. When a friend of a friend opened his East 88th Street apartment to him, he found a new home in the neighborhood.

While he scraped through school, only allowed to work a part-time, on-campus job, Krishnan met his wife, also a student at NYU.

“Within a year we got married,” he said. “It changed my life—not just in terms of living conditions and my ability to have opportunities in this country, but also the perception of what I want to do with my life. You come from a poor background in India, you come to America, you want to achieve wealth and economic success. But my wife comes from a very different background,” one that emphasizes service, he explained.

While his expertise is wide-ranging—he’s currently teaching in the global affairs department of NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and finishing his Ph.D. dissertation on international relations and science and technology policy—Krishnan wants to focus on the local. He reads voraciously and cites different authors’ ideas as inspiration for his enthusiastic opinions on how to tackle the Upper East Side’s biggest issues. He has embraced Edward O. Wilson’s idea of consilience, a term that the scientist author conjured to mean a unity of knowledge, as a lens through which to approach city government.

“Democracy starts in the local,” said Krishnan. “Education starts right here in our neighborhood.”

He saw firsthand the discrepancy between the glorified visions of American life he had previously held and the shortcomings of underserved schools in the Bronx when he tutored math to high school kids—he wants to make education a central focus of his campaign.

“Small class sizes alone is just one part of the puzzle. We have to have a curriculum that is project-based,” he said, like bringing kids to a lake to study pollution, biodiversity, biology and geography all in one experiential lesson.

Like every local politician and candidate for City Council, Krishnan is against the East 91st Street Marine Transfer station but looks at it as part of a larger problem to be solved for the city: How to reduce the amount of waste created in the first place instead of worrying about where to put it. He said that the jobs that will be created by the Cornell/Technion campus planned for Roosevelt Island is a major reason he has jumped into the race and would hope to use his own science background to help shape it.

“It’s great that we have lawyers and other intelligent people in the City Council, but we need people from different backgrounds represented,” Krishnan said.

That is why we are very concerned that, with the state budget gap, there is talk of laying off public school teachers. East Side Assembly Member Jonathan Bing, one of the good guys in Albany, is trying to refine the state’s approach to layoffs. His proposal would allow a panel of teachers, principals and administrators to decide whom to downsize. Although Bing would still allow seniority to factor into any decision, his plan has come under attack because that aspect would no longer be the central factor in cutting staff.

It’s reasonable not to agree with Bing’s idea (the teacher’s union contends that this may be used as a way to fire the most expensive teachers), but the current policy of “last hired, first fired,” which gives senior teachers priority during staffing cutbacks, doesn’t take into account a particular school’s needs, or the capabilities of newer teachers. If layoffs progress according to this plan, Bing has said that District 2 on the East Side and downtown would lose almost 20 percent of its teaching force.

While we’re not sure the panel approach is the answer, we do know that a conversation should be started about the right way to trim teaching staff, keeping the interests of students first. Laying off teachers is not a step that anyone wants to take, but smart, conscientious and independent legislators like Bing should not be afraid to advance ideas in this debate.