Melissa Bailey File Photo
After the school district turned over his “failing” school to a private company, Principal Leroy Williams has set to work on a new challenge at Hillhouse High.
Williams (pictured) served as principal of Roberto Clemente Leadership Academy for 16 years until last spring, when the city proclaimed it a failing school and hired a New Jersey-based company to take over.
He has now begun work at James Hillhouse High School as an “administrator on special assignment,” according to New Haven Public Schools spokesman Chris Hoffman. He will keep the $130,480 salary he made as Clemente’s principal.
Hillhouse Principal Kermit Carolina said he requested Williams be placed at Hillhouse in large part to help tackle the dropout rate. Williams started work along with other administrators in late August, Carolina said.
He said Williams has already started work scheduling the influx of new students and transfers who’ve joined the school so far and developing individual plans to support “at-risk” kids. Williams brings “a wealth of experience and knowledge” amassed in his 34 years on the job, Carolina said. His appointment keeps the number of Hillhouse administrators at six, not including the principal. Williams will fill a void left by former Assistant Principal Nadine Gannon, who left Hillhouse to run the King/Robinson School, Carolina said.
Williams was removed as principal when Clemente became a turnaround school as part of the city’s school reform drive, which is introducing new ways of managing low-performing schools. According to the reform effort, only principals who have been at a school for less than two years stay with the school when it becomes a turnaround.
Carolina said he was hurt to see Williams get a bad rap when he lost his job.
“A lot of people were upset about what happened” to Williams, Carolina said. “A lot of people out there felt he was being used as a scapegoat in the quest to privatize public education.”
Clemente serves over 530 students in grades pre‑K to 8 in the Hill. At the time the district decided to revamp the school, it had been the “lowest-performing school in New Haven for the longest time,” according to schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo.
The school had been on the federal watch list for failing schools for nine years — the longest in the district, Mayo said at the time.
When the turnaround came, teachers at Clemente had to reapply for their jobs if they wanted to stay there. About 75 percent of teachers left the school; according to their union contract, they were guaranteed jobs elsewhere in the district.
Williams’ fate was up in the air over the summer.
Spokesman Hoffman said the district “looked at the situation” at Clemente and “decided there was need for a change,” but did not determine the school’s poor performance was because of a poorly performing principal.
When 44 principals were graded last year on a scale of 1 to 5, Williams did not receive the lowest mark on the scale, Hoffman said. (The district does not release individual principals’ scores.)
“His evaluation was actually pretty good,” said Hoffman. “Leroy definitely has strengths. Certainly he should have the opportunity here to use those strengths in a way that is both good for him and for this district.”
Williams did not return a message left at Hillhouse Monday. Carolina gave an impassioned defense of a man he’s known as a mentor for decades.
“Are there some teachers and administrators who need to go? Yes,” Carolina said. “There are some who have retired on the job.”
But “Dr. Leroy Williams is not one of them.” Williams could be found in his office at 11 p.m. or midnight during the week and back in school on a weekend, he said.
Those who would suggest that Williams be removed from the district after leading a “failing school” for so many years need to look beyond just test scores, Carolina said. He said Williams is a dedicated educator who chose one of the most difficult jobs in the system.
Carolina said he got to know Williams at Wilbur Cross, when Carolina was a student and Williams was an assistant principal. At the time, Carolina was growing up in housing projects raised by a single mom. Williams, a black male role model, gave Carolina the “first image of what I would become.”
“He had a tremendous impact on my life as a young man. He made a connection with me,” Carolina said.
“I was hurt to see he’s been given this negative picture” when he was removed as principal.
Williams spent much of the spring on medical leave for knee surgery. In his absence, Co-op Assistant Principal Frank Costanzo stepped in as Clemente’s interim principal in the final five weeks of the school year.
Now Williams is fully back in action, walking every inch of the building at Hillhouse, Carolina said.
Carolina credited Williams for “choosing to be on the front line in education,” at challenging schools like Clemente and Hillhouse. Both are comprehensive schools that serve as a safety net for kids who leave other schools. Unlike at other schools, kids don’t apply through a magnet lottery to get into Clemente or Hillhouse. Students show up at any time during the year and the schools must accept them.
Williams “played the hand that he was dealt and did an admirable job,” Carolina said.
Working at Clemente is no “cakewalk” like some other administrative positions, Carolina observed.
Hillhouse promises to be no cakewalk either. The school this year is focusing on three goals: To boost the rigor of instruction in classroom, to provide “intense student support for students,” and to enhance college-going culture. Williams will focus on the “intense student support,” Carolina said. That means dealing with a school that gets 63 percent of high school transfers in the district. And it means helping address what Carolina has declared a crisis: Two-thirds of the boys who entered the school freshman year didn’t make it to graduation.
After choosing to work in “the most challenging school in the district” for 16 years, Carolina said, Williams has proved “he has the fortitude” to take on this new challenge.