Inside the High School Project, Part 3: The student perspective

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Inside the High School Project, Part 3: The student perspective
(Photo/Arwen Clemans)
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By James Libresco

Summer vacation is in full swing, but some Alexandria City High School students are focused on how staffing changes at the school may impact them during the next school year.

According to internal documents and multiple interviews with high-level staff, the school has replaced nearly half of its 16 assistant principals and deans, a move that is causing significant discourse among students, particularly about the lack of Spanish-speaking administrators within the International Academy.

The ACHS student newspaper Theogony, in an article reprinted by the Alexandria Times, reported earlier this year that the school district had initiated an administrative restructuring at ACHS, requiring all 16 mid-level administrators to re-apply for their jobs. The move accompanies the opening of the new Minnie Howard campus and shift to an “academy” learning model, which will split ACHS into six specialized learning academies.

According to an internal memo dated Aug. 6 that was reviewed by the Times, two assistant principals and four deans will retain their prior roles, and three assistant principals will shift to work as deans. The other seven mid-level administrators were offered different jobs in the district, but several of them declined to return, according to a source close to the situation who requested anonymity.

Two dean positions, including one in the International Academy – a specialized part of ACHS with roughly 800 immigrant youth who do not fluently speak English – have not been filled, according to the memo.

While many community stakeholders voiced concerns about the restructuring following the Theogony report in April, students within the IA were particularly vocal. Previously, the IA had two administrators — Jessica Milliken and RJ Carranza — who spoke fluent Spanish, but neither of them were rehired in the IA. Milliken was moved to Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology, but it is not clear whether Carranza was rehired in a different capacity.

“This is going to be a big change for the IA, because Ms. Milliken and Dean RJ were always there advocating for us,” rising junior Salma Naqshbandi, a member of IA leadership, said. “It’s going to be really hard to be without them. It will affect all of us.”

In June, Naqshbandi and rising senior Nixon Pérez Orózco, a School Board student representative, created an online survey that enabled IA students to share their support for Milliken. In 48 hours, it had received nearly 100 responses.

“Ms. Milliken does her job, but she does more,” Pérez Orózco said. “For example, when one of my friends searched something about self harm on her school computer, Ms. Milliken, on a Sunday morning, invited my friend out to coffee to talk to her about it. I don’t think anyone else from the school would do that on a Sunday morning.”

The Alexandria City Public Schools communications office declined to comment specifically on Milliken, as it said ACPS “does not comment on personnel matters.” Instead, the communications office agreed to Times interviews with Pierrette Finney, Ed.D. – the district chief of teaching, learning and leadership – and Grace Taylor, Ed.D., the district chief of staff. Both Finney and Taylor defended the restructuring.

“[The restructuring] pairs staff with their credentials and areas of their expertise,” Finney said. “The whole premise is improving student experiences.”

“Staffing is like a puzzle,” Taylor said. “You’re asking, ‘Are there outliers? Is there somebody that needs to be placed differently?’ Sometimes that happens.”

Rising senior Will Price, president of the ACHS NAACP chapter, said he believes the incorrect group of staff may have been targeted by the restructuring.

“There were definitely struggles and problems at school last year, but I don’t know if those fell on the mid-level administrators,” Price said. “As a student, I don’t know that those administrators are necessarily what’s causing me to excel or fail.”

However, Price said he understood why the decision to restructure was made.

“Things like this happen sometimes,” he said. “Decisions that might be for the better can also leave some people worse off. I don’t know if [the restructuring] had to be done, but I think that from the perspective of the district, it had to be done.”

A primary complaint from students about the restructuring is a perceived lack of Spanish-speaking or Latino staff.

When asked about ACHS staff demographic data, Finney said, “That would be a question for the [school-based] administrative team. They could tell you better than we can.”

The Times had already requested to interview members of the school’s administrative team, including ACHS Executive Principal Alexander Duncan, but the ACPS communications department turned down that request. The communications department also declined Times requests to interview ACPS Superintendent Melanie Kay-Wyatt, Ed.D., and School Board Chair Michelle Rief, Ph.D., for this story.

(Chart/James Libresco)

Pérez Orózco said IA Spanish-speaking students benefit from interacting with leaders who share their ethnicity.

“The IA won’t have a principal who is Hispanic or understands our community like Ms. Milliken did anymore, even though the population of our school is [42%] Hispanic,” Pérez Orózco said. “When you have someone who’s the same race as you, you feel more comfortable.”

Finney pushed back on the need to align students with administrators from the same ethnic group.

“There’s value in seeing people in leadership who look like you,” Finney said. “But the unique thing about ACHS is that there are so many support systems in place. I think students will be able to identify with someone, even if it’s not necessarily that one leader.”

Pérez Orózco said Hispanics are under-represented among teachers as well as administrators in ACPS.

“Where is the Hispanic representation in the school?” he asked. “Even in the IA, we don’t have diversity among teachers.”

Price agreed that students new to ACPS, and possibly to the United States, would benefit from administrators who speak the same language.

“I don’t want to speak for the IA, ‘cause I’m not part of it, but I think a big part of getting acclimated to the American school system is having an administrator who can break the language barrier,” Price said. “Not having that is definitely problematic.”

When asked, the ACPS communications department would not confirm whether any current IA administrators speak fluent Spanish, though students and teachers both told the Times that the IA lacks a Spanish-speaking administrator following the restructuring.

After learning about the restructuring, Pérez Orózco and Naqshbandi separately sent emails to the School Board, with Pérez Orózco also sending his email to Kay-Wyatt, expressing support for Milliken and concerns on how the IA would change without her. Despite follow-up emails from the students, just two of the nine Board members provided short responses – Abdel Elnoubi and Ashley Simpson Baird. Both students also received an email from the nameless AskACPS account, saying the Board was “unable to respond” because their emails discussed “confidential” processes.

Naqshbandi said she and Pérez Orózco also tried to meet with Duncan, but he said he couldn’t discuss person-nel issues.

“As students in our school, we should have the right to a response,” Naqshbandi said.

“It made me feel that they don’t care about the students, especially the IA students,” Pérez Orózco agreed.

Though also part of the administration, Taylor and Finney agreed that ACPS needs to respond to student concerns like those raised by Pérez Orózco and Naqshbandi.

“Student voice is valued,” Taylor said. “Students should get a response back. There’s no doubt about that.”

“I cannot speak to why anyone didn’t respond,” Finney said. “However, moving forward, … I’m supportive of meeting with students and responding to them by email.”

Outside of the IA, Price said he is not worried about the restructuring.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect the majority of students,” he said. “Few students pay close attention to what’s happening beyond their teachers.”

Another student, rising junior Zenith Parker, disagreed.

“I have ADHD, so I have to do a lot of planning before anything, and that stresses me out,” Parker said. “Having the accessibility to go to the administrators for help is nice. Now I have to build new relationships with them all over again.”

Parker and Naqshbandi said they have seen the positive impact administrators make around the school.

“When there are fights, I see the current mid-level administrators help those involved come to the root of the issue,” Parker said. “It builds a lot of respect.”

“Ms. Milliken was always there to discharge suspicions among students after fighting,” Naqshbandi said.

Naqshbandi and Pérez Orózco also said Milliken tackled the drug crisis in the IA head-on.

“She got all of it under control,” Pérez Orózco said. “When she found out students were using drugs, she gave big consequences. That’s why in the IA last year there weren’t a lot of students using drugs. … I totally disagree with the decision to get rid of her and the others.”

Parker shared additional worries about the timing of the restructuring.

“I don’t want to go to school at a new campus and then have to deal with new transportation, new rules, a new schedule, new staff, and new administrators,” they said.

Finney said transportation shouldn’t be an issue, as she believes nothing has changed regarding movement between the two campuses.

“There’s nothing different about the transportation between campuses that hasn’t happened in previous years,” Finney said, without addressing Parker’s other concerns. “Now, there may be some King Street students that have to go to Minnie Howard, but the process is the same.”

Price disagreed with Parker, saying any restructuring that’s to take place should happen with the opening of the new Minnie Howard campus.

“If the district wanted to make a big change, now would be the time to do it,” Price said. “They can almost mask it with the opening of the new campus.”

With less than two weeks until the 2024-2025 school year begins, district officials are eager for students, teachers and the new administrative team to get to work.

“I’m very excited about what’s going to happen,” Finney said. “I believe this is going to be a positive for ACHS, and I can’t wait for it to start.”

“It’s innovative, it’s groundbreaking and it’s going to be great,” Taylor added.

But students, especially immigrant students, shared a strikingly different perspective.

“The school year is going to be really hard for the IA, especially students who will arrive for the first time,” Naqshbandi said. “Without our current administrators, I’m worried no one will advocate for us.”

“We just won’t get the same support,” Pérez Orózco said. “I don’t want to imagine how it’s going to be.”

-james.libresco@gmail.com

The writer is a rising senior at ACHS and Editor in Chief of the school newspaper, Theogony.

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