Project Description
Danielle Salzberg
Principal, Frank McCourt High School
Manhattan, New York
Fellow
Danielle Salzberg is the founding principal of Frank McCourt High School. Her work in NYC public schools started in 1997 as a 7th and 8th grade ELA teacher. Since opening Frank McCourt High School in 2010, Danielle has been working with her team to actualize 23 years of best practice around teaching and innovative school design. In addition to degrees from New York University, Columbia Teachers College and Baruch College, she draws on the lessons of the hundreds of students, teachers and school leaders she has worked with and the school networks Frank McCourt High School partners with. She believes that schools need to evolve to meet the needs of their students as student strengths, experiences and expectations shift.
Collaborative problem-solving systems and protocols are at the heart of the instructional model at her school, and her students benefit from the growth mindset strategies embedded in a mastery learning model. Danielle became a teacher so she could continue to learn and see the texts in her ELA classrooms from the perspectives of her students; she leads with the same learner stance and strives to engage the members of her school community as they all work together to be better anti-racist allies and activists.
Kate Hickey
Assistant Principal, Frank McCourt High School
Manhattan, New York
ALLY
Kate Hickey is the Assistant Principal at Frank McCourt High School. She began her career in NYC Public Schools as a 10th and 11th grade history teacher and taught 10th grade Humanities at Frank McCourt for eight years before becoming an assistant principal.
A graduate of Fordham University and Hunter College, Kate’s educational philosophy is shaped by her belief in the power of cultivating a caring, accepting, and supportive school community.