CHELSEA — Brady Smith has been many things in his life — musician, furniture crafter, construction worker — but educator is the role that stuck.
“I’ve done a lot of different things, and I think what has kept me in schools is that every day looks different,” said Smith, 50, who has been the principal of the James Baldwin School at 351 W. 18th St., between Eighth and Ninth avenues, since 2013.
After teaching outside of Portland, Ore., for seven years, Smith moved to New York City in 2001 to start a job at a high school in the Bronx.
During a residency with education nonprofit New Leaders at IN-Tech Academy in The Bronx, he wrote a proposal to found a new high school that was accepted by the city's Department of Education.
Validus Preparatory Academy opened in 2005 — with Smith at the helm.
Even before he arrived at the James Baldwin School, Smith took cues from its founding principal Elijah Hawkes — a friend and colleague — by focusing heavily on restorative justice practices while he was at Validus.
“So often, incidents that occur are coming out of misunderstandings of some kind… miscommunication between parties, or in some cases students are disrupted because they’re struggling academically or they’re struggling with issues outside of school,” he said.
“[Restorative justice] requires an understanding that academic performance is related to socio-emotional health.”
At the James Baldwin School, restorative practices are constantly in play — from meetings between students and their advisers to peer mediation and community-building circles.
The school has been able to use its budget to hire a full-time restorative coordinator, who makes sure students receive the support they need to excel.
“The idea… with restorative justice, is [that] you have to build a community in order to have a community to restore people to if they’ve broken community norms… or violated the safety and security of the community,” he explained.
The school is also somewhat unique in that it is a transfer high school — where many students are “overage and under-credited,” or have chosen to leave their previous school for personal reasons, Smith said.
“It’s the most diverse school I’ve worked in in New York City in every way… and that’s intentional,” he said. “We want to be an alternative for students who are seeking a true alternative.”
Students at the school take classes that are not divided by grade level, and the school’s curriculum emphasizes social justice — with a particular focus on its namesake, the Harlem-born writer and social critic.
“At [James Baldwin’s] core, he was a change-maker,” said Smith.
“And so that’s central to our mission… to allow students who come here to really explore their world, explore issues of social justice, and understand them to make change," he added.
Baldwin’s message resonates with students because it is relevant today, he explained.
“For our students to read James Baldwin is often transformative for them,” he said. “Were he alive today, so many of the issues that are on the forefront of our politics — same sex marriage, immigration, Black Lives Matter, and more — are connected to the things he was concerned with in his time.”
