my experience as "Principal for a Day" at Fenger High School

If you follow me on twitter (click here to follow if don’t), you are probably used to seeing the behind the scenes craziness of my life, as I explore the beauty of Chicago’s character, art, entertainment & cultural scene. But no matter how random, I am sure like most, you were not expecting to see me as “Principal for a Day” at the much talked about Chicago Public School, Fenger.  

 

I first heard about Fenger when I was being interviewed live on cnn from Copenhagen on oct. 3rd about the olympic decision… as I was being patched in live via skyp from my hotel room, waiting to go on, I could shockingly hear in the background that there was a ton of commotion about a brutal death in the streets of chicago and something about a highschool called Fenger… I panicked, having no idea where this interview was about to go… just waiting in my lonely hotel room staring at skyp waiting to speak live to the world about whatever they asked… (click here to see the cnn interview)

 

It started with normal olympic questions, which were tough enough having just lost the bid, and then cnn hit me live with questions about violence and murder w/ our hometown school kids… I was terrified… partly because the news immediately broke my heart, partly because I had been so removed on the other side of the world and had not heard all the details of what just happened at all… but mostly because I never thought of myself as one to speak publicly about such a shocking event like that… 

 

If you saw the interview, you know I spoke from the heart and expressed my firm belief that it is all of our responsibility as a community to get involved with whatever we can to help… I even mentioned how one of the things I do is volunteer to speak to school children in need when ever I can, like I do every year at mayor daley’s chicago public schools “principal for the day” program, which actually was held yesterday, oct, 29th.

 

Immediately after the cnn interview, thankfully all my twitter followers and friends hit me with some very positive comments about how i answered the surprise questions to this very sensitive and tough issue (thank you for that by the way, it was only my second time on cnn, and I was freaking out).  Many of my twitter followers also suggested that I take on fenger when this “principal for a day” came around, as they thought I could really get in there and have a positive impact- so I did….

 

I will admit, I was a little nervous before my arrival.  The media had scared me about fenger, like they did everyone else.  But let me tell you, having been probably one of the first random visitors allowed in the school since the tragedy, especially w/ a camera (which btw I respectfully asked and received permission to use, and attached just a random piece that shows the energy, talent and desire to thrive), I will tell you the school, students, faculty, talent, spirit, character,… is nothing like the international media portray it to be… to some it up… they are wrong, it is beautiful, hardworking, respectable,… and I am now a huge fan and supporter of fenger, and you should be too.

 

Although I can go on forever about how great they are as there was just so much positive surprise, here are some quick thoughts… The newly acquired Principal Dozier is a hero- she is so passionate, hard working, smart, inspiring, respected, committed,… she will be someone people write books about and make movies about one day.  I feel the same way about her entire staff that she leads so well.  The kids are so great.  They want to learn.  They want great lives.  They deserve more of a chance.  The halls and classrooms are bright, clean, organized,… respect and order is obvious everywhere.  Fenger has been designated one of chicago’s new “turnaround” schools, google it, this school will turn around.  

 

It broke my heart to see that the kids’ spirits and feelings were a bit hurt that our media has portrayed them as part of a very bad thing.  they are not.  I was there, I spent time with them, I visited as many classes as I could, talked to as many kids as possible, shared my stories, heard all of theirs, gave advice, learned a lot myself… they are amazing, they deserve a fair chance.

 

It bums me out how far the media stretched things… that tragedy did not happen on school property, the things the media said the school did in response are not true, the school is a good school w/ good kids trying best they can to improve.. and as mayor daley said yesterday during our lunch, that tragedy was not a fenger problem, it was a community problem. And to me, that’s all of us!

 

I truly believe that if we don’t take care of our students, and educate, and mentor, and volunteer,… a lot of our problems as a community will never be solved.  Kids don’t start out as a problem, they learn from their environment.  Finger pointing gets us no where, these kids are there open to help, each one of them told me that they could use a mentor, people to talk to, people who will give them a chance.  They suffer more if we not only ignore them, but discriminate upon them by buying into what the media made these young hard working students out to be,…   we must respond.  

 

The fact is, they have a lot of work to do at fenger to improve and get their kids where they need to be, just like a lot of schools do.  They can struggle on their own, or we can help or hurt them.  There are opportunities to do both.  if we all spent the time looking into those opportunities to help as much as we complain about community problems or feed into the stories people just throw out there when they don’t really know the deal… we would be on our way to solving a lot for them, and solving a lot for our total future as a community.. and continually working to make this the best city in the world…. 

 

With that I leave you with fenger’s impressive website showing what they are really about… www.   Mentor, volunteer, help,… give them a chance…

If you follow me on twitter (click here to follow if don’t), you are probably used to seeing the behind the scenes craziness of my life, as I explore the beauty of Chicago’s character, art, entertainment & cultural scene. But no matter how random, I am sure like most, you were not expecting to see me as “Principal for a Day” at the much talked about Chicago Public School, Fenger.  

 

I first heard about Fenger when I was being interviewed live on cnn from Copenhagen on oct. 3rd about the olympic decision… as I was being patched in live via skype from my hotel room, waiting to go on, I could shockingly hear in the background that there was a ton of commotion about a brutal death in the streets of chicago and something about a highschool called Fenger… I panicked, having no idea where this interview was about to go… just waiting in my lonely hotel room staring at skype waiting to speak live to the world about whatever they asked… (click here to see the cnn interview)

 

It started with normal olympic questions, which were tough enough having just lost the bid, and then cnn hit me live with questions about violence and murder w/ our hometown school kids… I was terrified… partly because the news immediately broke my heart, partly because I had been so removed on the other side of the world and had not heard all the details of what just happened at all… but mostly because I never thought of myself as one to speak publicly about such a shocking event like that… 

 

If you saw the interview, you know I spoke from the heart and expressed my firm belief that it is all of our responsibility as a community to get involved with whatever we can to help… I even mentioned how one of the things I do is volunteer to speak to school children in need when ever I can, like I do every year at mayor daley’s chicago public schools “principal for a day” program, which actually was held yesterday, oct, 29th.

 

Immediately after the cnn interview, thankfully all my twitter followers and friends hit me with some very positive comments about how i answered the surprise questions to this very sensitive and tough issue (thank you for that by the way, it was only my second time on cnn, and I was freaking out).  Many of my twitter followers also suggested that I take on fenger when this “principal for a day” came around, as they thought I could really get in there and have a positive impact- so I did….

 

I will admit, I was a little nervous before my arrival.  The media had scared me about fenger, like they did everyone else.  But let me tell you, having been probably one of the first random visitors allowed in the school since the tragedy, especially w/ a camera (which btw I respectfully asked and received permission to use, and attached just a random piece that shows the energy, talent and desire to thrive), I will tell you the school, students, faculty, talent, spirit, character,… is nothing like the international media portray it to be… to some it up… they are wrong, it is beautiful, hardworking, respectable,… and I am now a huge fan and supporter of fenger, and you should be too.

 

Although I can go on forever about how great they are as there was just so much positive surprise, here are some quick thoughts… The newly acquired Principal Dozier is a hero- she is so passionate, hard working, smart, inspiring, respected, committed,… she will be someone people write books about and make movies about one day.  I feel the same way about her entire staff that she leads so well.  The kids are so great.  They want to learn.  They want great lives.  They deserve more of a chance.  The halls and classrooms are bright, clean, organized,… respect and order is obvious everywhere.  Fenger has been designated one of chicago’s new “turnaround” schools, google it, this school will turn around.  

 

It broke my heart to see that the kids’ spirits and feelings were a bit hurt that our media has portrayed them as part of a very bad thing.  they are not.  I was there, I spent time with them, I visited as many classes as I could, talked to as many kids as possible, shared my stories, heard all of theirs, gave advice, learned a lot myself… they are amazing, they deserve a fair chance.

 

It bums me out how far the media stretched things… that tragedy did not happen on school property, the things the media said the school did in response are not true, the school is a good school w/ good kids trying best they can to improve.. and as mayor daley said yesterday during our lunch, that tragedy was not a fenger problem, it was a community problem. And to me, that’s all of us!

 

I truly believe that if we don’t take care of our students, and educate, and mentor, and volunteer,… a lot of our problems as a community will never be solved.  Kids don’t start out as a problem, they learn from their environment.  Finger pointing gets us no where, these kids are there open to help, each one of them told me that they could use a mentor, people to talk to, people who will give them a chance.  They suffer more if we not only ignore them, but discriminate upon them by buying into what the media made these young hard working students out to be,…   we must respond.  

 

The fact is, they have a lot of work to do at fenger to improve and get their kids where they need to be, just like a lot of schools do.  They can struggle on their own, or we can help or hurt them.  There are opportunities to do both.  if we all spent the time looking into those opportunities to help as much as we complain about community problems or feed into the stories people just throw out there when they don’t really know the deal… we would be on our way to solving a lot for them, and solving a lot for our total future as a community.. and continually working to make this the best city in the world…. 

 

With that I leave you with fenger’s impressive website showing what they are really about… www.fengerhighschool.org   Mentor, volunteer, help,… give them a chance…