UPPER WEST SIDE — The principal credited with putting a struggling Upper West Side school on a path to success is leaving abruptly to take the helm of a Harlem charter school, parents and students learned Monday.
Brett Gallini, a high-energy 35-year-old who took the helm of P.S./M.S. 165 in the fall of 2010, announced his departure in a letter sent home with students. His last day could be as soon as Friday, he said.
Gallini is leaving to become head of school at the Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem, which is opening in the fall of 2012, he said. Assistant Principal Aracelis Castellano will serve as interim acting principal until a permanent replacement is found, a DOE spokeswoman said.
"I'm very excited," Gallini said. "It's a challenge I've never been a part of before, to build a school from the ground up."
Gallini said he couldn't pass up the opportunity to work at the Neighborhood Charter School of Harlem, which will serve autistic students alongside high-functioning kids. Gallini trained at East Harlem's P.S. 112, which has a similar program.
As head of school, Gallini will be responsible for recruiting teachers, designing curriculum, even picking out the colors of the classroom walls, he said.
After arriving at P.S./M.S. 165 on West 109th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, Gallini introduced a new math curriculum, added an extra period of English Language Arts, and started a course called "global issues," where students learn about current events.
Under his tenure, the school has seen its scores on Department of Education progress reports climb — and it earned a coveted "well-developed" rating on its latest DOE quality review this week, Gallini said.
Before Gallini arrived, the school had earned a "D" for student performance on its DOE progress report, and an overall grade of "B," or 43.8 out of 100 points.
Last year P.S. 165 got a "C" on student performance, and an "A" overall, with 71.6 out of 100 points. In citywide rankings, P.S./M.S. 165 jumped from the 49th percentile to the 93rd.
Gallini said he was confident that the success would continue in his absence.
"Our school is a complex system designed to get the results its getting," Gallini said. "I know the school will continue to progress because the systems are in place for good things to happen. The trajectory the school is on is bigger than me."
"It's very much a collaborative effort," Gallini added. He said in an interview earlier this fall that the school's teachers were the hardest working he'd ever seen.
Parents said they were surprised and disappointed to lose Gallini's leadership, but they were hopeful that the school would remain strong after he's gone.
"It's disappointing," said parent association president Alicia Simpson, the mother of a fourth-grader and a second-grader. "[But] I'm confident our school is going to continue to do well. We've got a great curriculum in place, we've got our teachers, we've still got a great community and we'll keep moving."
Simpson described Gallini as an ambitious go-getter who held teachers and staff to high standards. "He expected a lot," Simpson said. "He demanded a lot from teachers and the teachers worked extremely hard."
Parent Courtney Redfern, whose daughter is in kindergarten, said her disappointment over Gallini's departure was outweighed by the fact that she's "thrilled" with her daughter's teacher.
"[Gallini] came in with fresh ideas," Redfern said. "He was a champion for [the new curriculum], but now that it's there, the teachers are going to keep on teaching it. The trend is so favorable."
