Turnaround Artist
School principal Richard Massel is teaching lessons to more than just students
By Vicky Waltz
Despite being rather young to be a principal, Richard Massel is “absolutely committed to this school and its students,” he says, “and I think people are beginning to believe that.” Photo by Michal Lumsden
Richard Massel is not yourtypical school administrator. He’s only thirty-one years old, his curly brown hair reaches his shoulders, and he never even considered a career in education until after graduating from BU.
And yet, as principal of Monroe Academy for Visual Arts and Design, a high school in the Bronx, Massel (CGS’96, CAS’98) has done what his predecessors— three in three years — could not: he has improved attendance and graduation rates. Most important, his ratcheting up of students’ standardized test scores has nudged Monroe Academy off the ignominious list of New York’s failing schools. “I came in 2005,” says Massel, a former social studies teacher, “and I anticipated it would take three years to get off the list. We achieved the goal in less than half the time.”
During the 1990s, New York City broke up many of its large schools into smaller schools specializing in such areasas the arts, the sciences, and languages. Monroe Academy for Visual Arts and Design was one of the first. But without the necessary funding to remedy the problems that had plagued the larger school, it floundered almost immediately.
“When I got here,” Massel recalls, “there were students who had been at the school for four years who were still classified as freshmen.” Massel evaluated every transcript, and by the time the students returned in September, he had reworked the schedules of all 500 students. “Now,” he explains, “ninth graders who don’t have enough credits to be promoted to tenth grade don’t automatically repeat ninth grade. They only repeat the classes they failed.”
Another change made under Massel’s direction — reducing the role of the arts program in favor of college preparatory courses — remains controversial, but it is generating positive results. In one year, the graduation rate jumped from 19 percent to 55 percent.
Before Massel arrived, students were required to take eight semesters of art. “Now, I don’t deny that the arts are important,” he says. “But when I have kids who are in their third year and who have no science or math credits, how have I helped them graduate?” Today, students are required to take two semesters of art, although they are encouraged to take more once they fulfill their other requirements.
For Massel, the biggest challenge has been winning the confidence of students and parents. “I am young,” he says, “and I have a lot less experience than most principals. But I’m absolutely committed to this school and its students, and I think people are beginning to believe that.”
One person Massel does not need to convince is Tom Porton, who has taught English at the school for thirty-eight years. “He is here from seven in the morning until nine at night,” Porton says. “He’s managed to turn our school into a viable institution. It had been sinking rapidly, but through his hard work, it took flight like a phoenix.”