Maxey is the new principal of Alexandria’s T.C. Williams High School, which federal education officials earlier this year singled out as one of Northern Virginia’s lowest-performing high schools. Before joining T.C. Williams, Maxey was a principal at Seneca Valley High in Montgomery County, and at Bowie High in Prince George’s County.
What do you hope to accomplish at T.C. Williams?
We’re really trying to peel back the onion of the school layer by layer to try to make everything excellent. There’s a new definition of what it means to be excellent in schools today. It’s not good enough to be excellent in some things — you have to be excellent in everything and with all students.
What are some of the changes you’ve implemented?
We’ve reorganized the whole school. We’ve added additional staffing, additional counselors. The school’s now divided into what we call “learning communities” by grade level, which are overseen by a dean who handles disciplinary issues and student welfare. We’ve also increased the ratio of guidance counselors to students to 1-to-180. For most schools it’s around 400 kids per guidance counselor. … We’re going to offer significant academic support before and after school, as well as additional math and writing centers if kids need help.
Any other new programs?
Every student will have by the end of the year an individualized achievement plan, which will be for math and for English. That’s something I think is really key to school improvement. Also, every teacher’s going to have a professional learning plan.
What do you think are the most important factors in improving a school’s performance?
Getting down to every single student is hard if you don’t have the staffing. One of the mistakes we make in education is that we have great ideas, but if you don’t have the time and the people to do it, it doesn’t work very well. We’re really going to give people the time to do their job. – Markham Heid
