Philosophy/Personal StatementI was a bad student in high school. I didn't study, I got bad grades, I had an attitude, and I disrespected my teachers. I'd like to believe it was because I was brilliant and existentially bored with the pedestrian intellect of my peers. I would like to believe that it was because my school was so backward and repressive that I was put in a desperate situation. But that wasn't it. I wasn't particularly bright; my peers were actually pretty smart; and my school was, all things considered, a reasonably decent place. I'd like to believe it was because no one in my family had graduated from high school, let alone attended college. But that too was not a valid explanation. My parents always loved and supported me at school. In high school, I was just a bad student who never connected to this place. It wasn’t until college that I found my intellectual voice. I took a medieval history course with a maniacal professor who was passionate about the history of ideas. More than any specific content, it made me feel like I was a member of a larger community of scholars; that what I did mattered. He gave me access to the archives of the Library of Congress; he invited me, as an undergraduate, to present an academic paper at a conference at Villanova University. I ultimately left academia to teach in the classroom, but my transformation from a stereotypical “Gen X slacker” to someone dedicated to learning profoundly shaped my approach to teaching and school leadership . What exactly did I learn from all this? I learned that belonging to a community is important. Until I met my medieval history teacher, school seemed like a rather distant thing in the middle of a paper...it wasn't. It has been filled with controversial and very difficult moments. A culture of collaboration and innovation involves honesty, confrontation and differences of opinion. It’s about moving people when they feel completely comfortable where they are. It is about overturning long-established practices and canceling truces that have existed for decades. My biggest concern in releasing all of these energies was that we might open Pandora's box and release toxic elements into our school. And although there were many heated disagreements, the community grew stronger. People's opinions are sought and their input is important in the development of school policies. I can't say we're exactly where we want to be as a community - and I'm not sure we ever will - but at the very least we've given people the feeling that community does indeed matter..