Lorraine Monroe
Author and Founding Principal of Harlem's Frederick Douglass Academy on the importance of instructional leadership
In this video, Houston A+ Challenge asks Dr. Lorraine Monroe, the founding principal of the renowned Frederick Douglass Academy in Central Harlem, and founder and former director of the Bank Street College of Education's Center for Minority Achievement, the following questions:
- What is the most important quality a principal should have to successfully lead a school?
- Why is it so difficult for many in our society to believe that all children can learn?
- What type of positive change have you seen in public schools during your career?
Monroe visited Houston on October 23, 2009, for a full-day workshop with aspiring principals enrolled in Houston A+ Challenge's principal leadership academy. She is the author of Nothing's Impossible: Leadership Lessons from Inside and Outside the Classroom and The Monroe Doctrine: An ABC Guide to What Great Bosses Do. Her groundbreaking work has been featured nationally by 60 Minutes, The New York Times, Reader's Digest, and Fast Company magazine.
Through the nonprofit Lorraine Monroe Leadership Institute (LMLI), Dr. Monroe and her staff have helped to train and coach leaders and their teams in public and charter schools throughout the United States -- in New York, Virginia, Washington, D.C., California and Massachusetts -- and abroad, in Trinidad, Jamaica, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. The LMLI continues to work closely with ten "Demonstration Dream Schools" in Harlem, helping principals in New York City public schools to improve their skills as instructional leaders and create schools where students' lives are transformed, both academically and socially.
