Penn finds a principal full of heart to lead public school

On the trail earlier this year to find a principal for the Penn-assisted school, selection committee member Amy Neukrug knew she had happened upon something special at the M. Hall Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia.

"We were interviewing her, and the door was open the entire time -- it was clear that she had absolutely nothing to hide," Neukrug said of Principal Sheila Sydnor. "That initial response and behavior really set the tone for the kind of person she is, for the kind of integrity she has, for the kind of honesty she has. She is who she says she is."

That open-door policy is now in place at the Penn-assisted public school at 42nd and Locust streets, which Sydnor has led since her selection from a national pool of 60 candidates in May. For Sydnor, a 1974 College graduate and an alumnus of West Philadelphia High School, the move was a chance to return to her roots, as well as to try something new.

"Every principal's dream is to start a new school," she said.

Before starting her 25-year career with the Philadelphia School District, Sydnor once envisioned another future for herself -- as a psychologist. Her world changed when she spent the first of three summers working as a camp counselor.

"When I came home at the end of that summer, I realized I wanted to teach," and changed her major to education, she said. "I guess spending eight weeks with kids sleeping in the woods will do that."

Her professional interest has always lain mainly with younger children. At the Penn-assisted school, this means 76 children in kindergarten and first grade this year. The student body will expand to 700 students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, when its new facility on the same site is completed next summer.

"It's just more exciting to see them from the beginning and watch them as they grow," Sydnor said. "You're really helping to mold the child."

At times during the school day, the only difference between Sydnor and her students is height. She can be found eating lunch with them in the cafeteria, squeezing into grade-school size chairs to interact with them in class and playing basketball with them during recess.

"I'm their principal, but I'm also a human being too, and they need to see that side and become comfortable and familiar with me," Sydnor said. "That's why I go out and play in the yard, because it builds community. They feel safe, they feel comfortable, we can talk about anything. That's good."

But Sydnor's softer side is not always immediately visible behind the sometimes stern demeanor that evokes tough love.

"If you don't get to know her, you can surmise that she's not a very warm and friendly person," Stanton Vice Principal Mark Wilicki said. "But she really is a kind person -- big hearted."

Sydnor's brand of compassion showed through at Stanton, which is located in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Although the downtown skyline looms magnificently in the distance, the immediate view from the schoolyard is one of abandoned houses and filthy streets. Drug use is rampant.

"It's a rough neighborhood, it's a rough school," Wilicki said. "She was the one bright spot."

Another colleague of Sydnor's, Dobbins High School principal Charles Whiting, said that Stanton "had an umbrella of love because of her tutelage."

Sydnor was at Stanton's helm for nine years, and during that time she arranged for her students to spend a week at a Boy Scouts camp. She would always make sure that her students had the clothes that they needed, paying for them out of her own pocketbook if necessary. She made Stanton's dull red brick building one of the most technologically advanced schools in the city.

Overriding all of this was her refusal to believe that lower standards were to be expected of her students because of the school's location.

"The neighbors of Stanton will always remember Sheila Sydnor and her red car," Whiting said. "Whenever the neighborhood saw her red car in front of the school, they knew that everything was well and safe at the Stanton school."

Upon hearing that Sydnor would be leaving Stanton, Wilicki described the mood in the school as "very, very sad."

"It was like letting the air out of a balloon," he said.

However, Sydnor had no time for sentimentalities. While she was finishing up the year at Stanton, her new responsibilities were already starting.

"She had to hit the ground running when she came on board," said Penn Graduate School of Education Associate Dean Nancy Streim, who led the new school's educational planning effort. "She had a whole school to open by September."

This meant a flurry of activity over the summer, from ordering the countless supplies needed to equip a school with only bare walls to hiring a staff to embody the Penn-assisted school's mantra of learning for both students and faculty.

Sydnor said the biggest difference between the two schools is not the manner of teaching, but rather such social components as the parents' educational level and race. At Stanton, the student body is nearly 100 percent African American, whereas the Penn-assisted school is roughly one-third each African-American, white and Asian. Students come from 19 different countries.

To allow the parents and faculty from these varied backgrounds to understand one another, Sydnor has been a key force in establishing a World Cultures Committee, as well as a Home and School Association. However, she knows that the Penn-assisted school does not solely belong to her.

"Sheila leads and is very present at these meetings... but she is allowing us to stake a claim in the school," said Neukrug, whose daughter attends kindergarten at the school. "She has a very soft touch, and at the same time she steers the ship."

Sydnor's days are a whirl of perpetual motion. They stretch from 6 a.m. until about 5:30 p.m, not counting the avalanche of paperwork that regularly consumes her evenings and weekends. But her frenzied pace does not show through in her interactions with colleagues, students and parents.

"While as a principal I'm sure she has a million things to do, she makes me feel that she can always make time to talk to me," Neukrug said.

Much of Sydnor's day is spent in the classroom -- something that her teachers do not seem to mind.

"Because she's been doing it since day one, it feels only natural," kindergarten teacher Richard Staniec said. "It's actually nice to know that she's that concerned about the kids in the classroom."

Sydnor's colleagues also say that while she is demanding, she would never ask them to do something that she would not do herself. At Stanton, this meant everything from dishing out lunches to making sure that the school's floors shone.

"It wasn't uncommon to have her sweeping in the lunchroom between lunches," Wilicki said. "If you saw her, you really wouldn't believe that she was the principal -- she did everything."

But she does not make such sacrifices for glory. Instead, Sydnor said that her reward is watching the children progress.

"Hopefully they'll go on to be rich and famous -- that'll be nice," she said. "But to see them learn how to read, and to know that you've had an impact on that, that's incentive enough."

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