NYC’s famed LaGuardia Excessive Faculties faucets alum as new principal

LaGuardia Excessive Faculty, New York Metropolis’s premier performing arts faculty, is getting a brand new principal after 5 months with no everlasting chief.

Deepak Marwah, an alum and former instructor at LaGuardia, is about to take the helm on the Higher West Facet establishment later this month, the college introduced Friday. Marwah most just lately oversaw arts training for the New Rochelle faculty district.

The appointment comes on the heels of a turbulent stretch at LaGuardia, which instructions outsize consideration due to its star-studded record of alumni and its international status because the inspiration for the films and TV present Fame. The varsity has lengthy attracted fierce debates over the suitable stability between arts and lecturers.

Principal Yeou-Jey Vasconcelos left in March after a drama-filled three-year tenure that included shepherding the college by way of the pandemic and high-profile clashes with some dad and mom over Superior Placement choices and the size of the college day.

Since then, the college has gone with no everlasting principal, leaving many staffers and households craving for stability. 

Marwah mentioned his expertise as a pupil at LaGuardia within the mid-Nineties “modified his life” — and he hopes he can present that for others. 

However earlier than creating his long-term imaginative and prescient for the college, Marwah desires to “go in and actually perceive what works proper now.” It’s vital to take his time, he mentioned, given the college’s management transitions over the previous decade. 

LaGuardia has historical past of fierce debates

Principals at LaGuardia have typically discovered themselves on the middle of heated debates over the mission and priorities of the college.

Lisa Mars, who took the helm in 2013, prioritized boosting the college’s educational status by increasing AP choices and elevating the tutorial threshold for admission. These adjustments sparked livid backlash that culminated in widespread pupil and employees protests that led to her ouster in 2019.

Vasconcelos, a former principal of one other performing arts highschool and skilled pianist, took over with plans to revive a concentrate on the humanities and scale back educational stress. 

Beneath her tenure, the Schooling Division lowered the tutorial threshold for admissions, a transfer staffers say has mildly elevated the range of the scholar physique. The COVID pandemic began shortly after she took over, touching off battles at LaGuardia and different massive excessive faculties between dad and mom and directors over the provision of in-person studying. 

Vasconcelos additionally floated plans to swap out Superior Placement programs for different forms of high-level courses and shorten the college day, which ended after 4 p.m. Each proposals met fierce backlash from some dad and mom.

Marwah, born within the Bronx and raised in Queens by immigrant dad and mom, mentioned he’s ready to step into the swirling stress and expectations of the function, and is dedicated to sustaining the college’s twin mission of fostering each world-class arts and high-level lecturers.

His personal background as a singer and vocal efficiency instructor, in addition to an administrator for a number of district-level arts packages, provides him a first-hand appreciation of the ability of arts training, he believes.

“I believe it’s actually vital for the chief of LaGuardia Excessive Faculty to know that college students are there to create artwork, and to make sure that they’re getting the best possible arts and educational training that they might presumably get,” he mentioned.

However Jamie McShane, the mother or father of a rising senior and former president of the mother or father affiliation, mentioned it was Marwah’s dedication to sustaining educational rigor that was most interesting to some dad and mom.

“There was a variety of concern I believe across the faculty getting away from that twin mission,” mentioned McShane, who was a member of the mother or father group that interviewed candidates. “I believe he actually sees not everybody desires to go to an arts conservatory, and that some of us need to have the ability to pursue AP courses and educational excellence.”

However Marwah cautioned that it’s “not cheap” for LaGuardia dad and mom to count on that the college “may have the whole lot that Stuyvesant or Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech might be able to supply them academically along with the humanities.”

For all of his expertise with arts training, Marwah hasn’t beforehand held a place as a school-level administrator, a resume that fearful one veteran LaGuardia educator who mentioned main the college is a notoriously complicated job that stumped even skilled directors.

“Not solely is it going to be his first principal job…he’s by no means been an assistant principal, and also you’re placing him in one of many highest profile jobs within the system,” mentioned the staffer, who spoke on the situation of anonymity. “You surprise if an individual is being arrange for fulfillment.”

Marwah acknowledged that there will probably be a studying curve. However he mentioned that many points of his present function main districtwide arts programming, which incorporates supervising 50 staffers, would translate to his new place. He additionally famous that he served as a division chair at New Rochelle Excessive Faculty.

LaGuardia grapples with ongoing challenges

Dad and mom, college students, and educators say LaGuardia is grappling with its share of ongoing challenges. Some are shared extensively throughout a college system nonetheless rising from the pandemic and going through looming price range cuts, whereas others are distinctive to the college.

Faculty staffers mentioned that a number of colleagues acquired extra notices within the spring, when the college was with no everlasting principal. The surplus notices, which hold staff on the Schooling Division payroll however take away them from their faculty positions, went out to 5 assistant principals, together with a number of steerage counselors, and a disaster social employee, in accordance with one staffer who acquired such a discover.

An Schooling Division spokesperson denied that the assistant principals had been excessed, saying the college was “within the strategy of transitioning some into particular content material areas.” The steerage division was “overstaffed,” however stays inside the beneficial counselor to pupil ratio, the spokesperson added. 

Highschool college students throughout the town are coping with elevated ranges of stress and psychological well being challenges within the wake of the pandemic.

Marwah mentioned he sees pupil psychological well being as a precedence, and he thinks that arts training could be a highly effective car for social and emotional studying.

And whereas he helps persevering with to supply a sturdy vary of Superior Placement courses, he mentioned he’s additionally fascinated with reviewing college students’ schedules to see if they’re “overloading” on the superior programs, and whether or not which may be contributing to psychological well being challenges.

However maybe the most important problem going through the brand new principal will probably be managing the sorts of clashes with dad and mom that consumed the tenures of earlier principals.

Natasha Labovitz, the mother or father of a rising senior and a latest alum on the faculty, mentioned she’s involved {that a} “small group of very vocal dad and mom who didn’t appear glad” with the college’s “emphasis on the humanities” gained undue affect on faculty coverage lately.

“I believe nearly all of the mother or father physique is glad on the faculty,” she mentioned.

She hopes Marwah will probably be “much less challenged” by mother or father pushback, and suggested that he hear most carefully to employees and college students — the people who find themselves on the bottom and “working 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. to create magic in a dilapidated outdated DOE constructing.”

McShane, the previous mother or father affiliation president, countered that “tons of” of oldsters attended mother or father affiliation conferences over contentious proposals beneath Vasconcelos’s tenure concerning the bell schedule and AP programs. 

Marwah’s choice, he mentioned, is proof that Manhattan Excessive Faculties Superintendent Gary Beidleman, who oversees the college, “heard mother or father issues, and he was responsive.”

Marwah mentioned that “when it comes as much as dad and mom, academics, or college students having battle, I believe the most effective factor is for me to spend the 12 months taking all of the stuff that I’ve listened to, and all of the stuff that I’ve discovered, to develop a imaginative and prescient for the college that we are able to all purchase into.”

Josh, a 2023 LaGuardia graduate and pupil chief who labored carefully with the earlier administration — who requested to make use of solely his first identify — inspired the brand new principal to make himself obtainable to college students and promote extra alternatives for pupil management.

“It’s vital to contemplate how pupil management goes to be additional fostered,” he mentioned. “College students don’t really feel like their pursuits and issues had been being correctly represented.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, protecting NYC public faculties. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.