On the career ladder of school administration, co-administrator is a position where many people start out. But just because some of these people are relatively new to school leadership does not mean they cannot have a huge impact in their positions.
A case in point is Ammar Saheli, assistant principal of San Leandro High School in San Leandro USD. Although he has worked in his current position only since 2006, Saheli has made such a huge difference in reaching out to minority students and helping the school close the achievement gap that he has been named ACSA’s 2008 Secondary Co-Administrator of the Year.
A glance at Saheli’s resume shows that reaching out to underrepresented groups is his passion. He has written articles and given presentations and workshops in this area. Indeed, his doctorate from the University of San Francisco is in the field of international and multicultural education.
Saheli said this all came about as the result of a life-changing experience when he took a class in black psychology at San Francisco State that was taught by Laura Head.
“I didn’t know much about the class, but the topic looked exciting,” Saheli said. “The content and the literature was highly transformative, and basically changed my intellect and psychology in terms of me being an African American man, both from a racial and cultural perspective. This information was so earth-shattering for me – at that point I was in my 20s – and I was shocked about why this was the first time I was encountering this information.”
Saheli began to wonder why this line of study had not been broached in his elementary, middle or high school.
“At that point I dedicated myself to coming in contact with the students who also needed to have their racial identity understood and enriched,” he said. “Because I think there’s a strong connection with academic performance and racial identity. It’s a person understanding who they are, not based on the prescriptions and notions that society has placed on them.
“I realized that too many years had gone by for me not to have been in contact with that information. Had I had an opportunity to have had that information as early as elementary school, how much more rich of an educational experience I may have had!”
When Saheli came on board with San Leandro HS after a recent stint with Mt. Diablo High in Mt. Diablo USD, he came into a situation where there had been unrest on campus, particularly between groups of Latino and African American students. In fact, local media had termed one incident a “riot.”
“I was saying to myself, ‘I’m not going to allow this to happen!,’” Saheli said. “Our superintendent (Christine Lim) has a concept called Walking to the Edge, where she challenges us to try and tread in some waters in which you’ve never gone before.
“I had never worked exclusively with Latino and Latina students, so as a challenge to myself I said this was something that I wanted to do.”
Saheli went out and found the most disconnected Latino students on campus, met with them individually, and challenged them to each bring in five to 10 students for a new class he would teach. The class then met with 30 to 40 Latino boys, and read various literature, going over key concepts like critical consciousness and navigational practices.
“I wanted to get them exposed to these concepts and relate them to their daily existence, both in school and life,” Saheli said.
After a year, the program moved from being held during the school day to after school time, but student participation remained high. Saheli then decided the time was right to include African American students in the program. He asked the Latino students in the class and they agreed.
The result of this and other efforts made by Saheli? There were significant declines in campus fights, suspensions and expulsions, and the overall climate on campus improved markedly.
The school has also made significant improvement in closing the achievement gap. While the whole school’s API score improved by 42 points, Latino students scores improved 50 points, African American students scores improved 61 points and English learner scores jumped an impressive 82 points. Saheli recognizes that it takes everyone to reach these students who often feel alienated. To that end, he has done trainings with staff and outreach to parents.
“I realized in my first year at Mt. Diablo High School that there was really a lack of understanding on the part of faculty in regard to what students bring to school every day from an urban perspective,” Saheli said.
“There would be students that lived in neighborhoods where a murder had occurred, maybe a family member or close friend. But they would have to take that identity off and then walk into school and act as if that piece of their life didn’t exist. Then they would get on the bus and go back home and put that jacket back on. I realized that was a huge disconnect. So I developed my first staff training around understanding students.”
In addition, Saheli targets parents of students who are struggling. He takes the list of all students who have two or more F’s and invites their families in for a meeting, where they sit down and discuss possible solutions.
In the summer, Saheli dons his educational consultant hat and offers a free workshop for urban families on how to be successful in the education system. He explains the expectations for them, terminology they should be familiar with and what their rights are.
As might be expected, this is a man on the rise. Saheli will start a new position on July 1 as director of student support services at San Lorenzo USD. But he still feels humbled by this ACSA recognition, especially since he feels equity work is often misunderstood.
“It’s an interesting dynamic,” he said. “With many schools that end up in academic trouble, it primarily centers around perhaps a subgroup or subgroups that didn’t meet their API goals. The work of equity says that if there are these groups that are underperforming, you need to do something to help them catch up so that the gap can close. Because if everyone continues to get the exact same thing, everyone can improve, but the gap stays the same. But sometimes the perception is that one group is being neglected so another group can receive more. Which is totally not the case. Sometimes in doing equity work I’ve perceived these negative comments or negative slants. The reception of this award just counteracts all of that.
“So I’m totally blown away. It’s an absolute honor and it came out of left field, which is always the best way. It was totally unexpected and I’m very thankful.”
Administrators of the Year will be formally honored at the Leadership Summit in November.