Editorial: Returning Hempstead High principal needs leeway

Current Hempstead students have grown up in a public school district bereft of stability. Its glaring absence in both district governance and administration has only exacerbated existing fault lines, including power-hungry elected officials who have lost the community's trust and racial tensions among both children and parents.

Students have understandably struggled to gain their academic footing on such a precarious foundation. Nowhere is it more noticeable than at Hempstead High School, which the district began separating in 2010 into distinct college preparatory academies, a massive structural shift reversed in April by a trigger-happy school board.

The regular high school's graduation rate fell to 38 percent during the short-lived experiment. Envisioned as a way for students to specialize and work more closely with teachers, it was abandoned largely due to administrative inefficiency. But it's impossible to say whether the academies would have been successful long-term. The school board pulled the plug before the construct could be properly analyzed and refined.

Now -- as Hempstead High School seeks to return to its old model and boost its disgraceful graduation rate -- the last principal to oversee progress at the school is returning to pick up the pieces.

Reginald Stroughn, 61, was hired last week as the high school's executive principal, a position he held from 2003 until his retirement in 2009. Along with closing campus during school hours, pushing for Regents exam preparation and instituting night classes, the no-nonsense disciplinarian began to change the school's learning climate. Graduation rates jumped from 38 percent to 65 percent over his first five years as principal. Within three years of his retirement, however, those modest academic gains disappeared as violence, often racially motivated or gang-related, picked up.

Stroughn was brought back to shepherd the consolidation. While students will still be able to specialize in specific fields of study -- the highlight of the academy system -- they'll share the same administrative roof. He plans to reapply many of the successful reforms from his first stint at the helm. And he's seeking a Spanish-speaking assistant principal to round out his cast of four deputies.

That's a smart move in a district with rapidly changing demographics -- 57 percent of students are Hispanic, nearly half of whom speak limited English, and 39 percent are black. The school board should at least consider following Stroughn's lead when it appoints a member to its vacant seat. Hispanic members of the community, meanwhile, should run candidates in May's election if they want a more representative school board.

What would also help is for this overly reactive school board to stay out of the way of Stroughn and other administrators. It made seven superintendent changes over the past eight years. That volatility prevents the district from establishing a clear direction, an instability that cascades down the ranks. The board fired all three college preparatory academy principals in April. And the high school saw 32 percent annual turnover among teachers from 2009 to 2011.

Now that the school board and superintendent have settled on Hempstead High School's structure, they must stick with it. It's far from certain whether Stroughn can mimic his previous successes. But he can't move forward if he's constantly looking over his shoulder.