BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A new interim acting principal is slated to take over Brooklyn’s troubled Boys and Girls High School, education officials announced this week.
The city’s Department of Education tapped Bronx assistant principal Grecian Harrison to take over the Fulton Street school following the departure of former master principal Michael Wiltshire, officials said Monday.
Harrison served as assistant principal at the Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School for the past 13 years, according to DOE officials.
“As a proud Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy native, I am committed to building on the progress and continuing to improve student achievement at Boys and Girls High School,” she said in a statement.
“I look forward to working with these students and families and the Bed-Stuy community to strengthen this school and give all our students the education they need to succeed after high school.”
Harrison takes the reins in turning around the historic school, which was designated as a Renewal School by the city.
Former principal Michael Wiltshire left at the start of July in what DOE officials said was a mutual decision. He is now working full-time as the head of Crown Heights’ Medgar Evers College Preparatory School.
Boys and Girls has been under the community spotlight in past months, after the DOE found that Wiltshire failed to properly report an alleged sexual harassment incident at the school. The school has also struggled in recent years with graduation rates and student underperformance.
Under his leadership, the historic high school saw an uptick in its graduate rate from 41.9 percent to 50 percent in 2015, according to the DOE, as well as a 39 percent increase in high school admission offers this past spring, up to 129 from 93 the previous year.
Harrison will serve as interim acting principal until officials conduct a formal appointment process for the position, during which a committee of parents, staff and school representatives will be able to interview candidates, according to reports.
Alumni at Boys and Girls had rallied behind another pick, Allison Farrington, founding principal of Research and Service High School, as first reported by Chalkbeat.
As the leader of Research and Service — which shares the same building as Boys and Girls — Farrington is well known by the school community, said Sam Penceal, member of Boys and Girls' alumni association.
“We can see the work she has been doing in the building and much of what she is doing is worth being duplicated at Boys and Girls,” Penceal told DNAinfo New York.
“It seems to me that it makes sense in a situation such as this to have someone known by the people in the school and community," he continued, "considering the dire situation in which the school faces itself.”
School representatives signed a letter to Chancellor Carmen Fariña last month backing Farrington and two other candidates for the position, Chalkbeat reported.
The school’s superintendent met with the school community before making the selection, according to reports, and will continue to meet with stakeholders.
In addition to a new leader at Boys and Girls, DOE officials announced a new principal for Williamsburg’s Automotive High School, another Renewal School.
Kevin Bryant, who heads Frances Perkins Academy in the same building, will take over.
“These are the right principals to continue the hard work of turning a school around,” Fariña said in a statement. “I know they’ll be strong instructional leaders and support students, teachers and families.”
