Roxborough High No Longer A Persistently Dangerous School

According to Stephen Brandt, the principal of , getting removed from the city's persistently dangerous school list was all about creating a vision.

"The entire staff worked hard to create a school-wide climate and culture that created a safe and productive learning environment," he said. "We set our expectations high, created a vision that emphasizes college preparation and we have worked to have everyone buy into that vision."

Roxborough was one of 11 high school and middle schools to be removed from the citywide list of persistently dangerous schools this year. The number of schools on the list dropped from 19 to 10, a 47 percent decrease, a release from the school district stated.

Brandt, also an alum of the school, took the reigns in March of 2010 and said he immediately began the reformation.

"Coming in so late in the year allowed me to truly focus on setting a tone for this building and holding people accountable," he said. "One of our issues was traffic in the hallways so we began conducting hall sweeps and implementing progressive disciplinary action. We stayed true to the process and quickly got the halls cleared and held the kids accountable for getting to class on time."

The changing tone set the school up for success during last school year, Brandt said, adding that the focus was on educational programming.

"If you instruct and teach effectively, you're going to engage the kids in positive things so there is less time for them to get into other things," he said. "We focused on pedagogy and instructional practices."

Last year the high school tripled the number of AP courses it offered, added honors programs from nineth and 10th graders and created a nineth grade academy to help ease students' transition from middle school to high school.

This year the principal says he hopes to focus on maintaing the culture and climate of the school and continue to improve educational programming.

"Now that we seem to have the climate under control, we're keeping our foot on the gas and pushing instructional programming harder, faster and further than ever before," Brandt said.