Meet the Principals of College Park

College Park, home to two public schools and four private schools, offers local residents a diverse educational landscape. In less than a 10-mile radius, one can find an Islamic school that serves the area's Muslim population, a private Quaker school and a private Catholic school. In honor of the new school year, we here at Patch want to introduce you to the leaders at the helm of these hubs of education.

Dr. Jay B. Teston, principal of Paint Branch Elementary School on Pierce Avenue, said he believes in education with an international emphasis. In his third year as principal of Paint Branch, Teston is working to expand his students' knowledge of the global community. In 2009, Paint Branch partnered with the University of Maryland's Confucius Institute. The partnership sought to promote the teaching and learning of the Chinese language and culture. As part of the partnership, the institute sponsored a full-time Chinese language teacher and assisted the school in taking about 50 students and chaperones to China in March. Teston has made partnerships an integral part of the school's growth.

"We have two major initiatives coming this school year, both with the University of Maryland," Teston said. "One is in the area of international education with the university's College of Education. And we still have a partnership with the Confucius Institute. We would like to go deeper into our projects involving Chinese language and culture."

Barbara Caskey has been the principal of Hollywood Elementary School on 49th Avenue for 17 years. In that time, Caskey has overseen the school's shift from being a predominately Caucasian and African American school to a multicultural hot spot.  "The school is over 50 percent Hispanic, about 18 percent white, 20 percent black and about 12 to 15 percent Asian. It's a nice mixture of the diverse population that we have in College Park," Caskey said. Despite the fact that many of schools' students speak English as a second language, test scores in math and reading remain high. "Most of our grades are in the 80th or 90th percentile," Caskey said.

This year, Hollywood is hoping to expand Read Together, a popular program, so that it involves more students. This program allows fifth- and sixth-graders to serve as reading tutors to students in the lower grades.

Larry Clements, head of Friends Community School on Westchester Drive, is no stranger to leadership. With a career in private education that spans more than three decades, Clements has taught, coached and served on accreditation boards. "I was the director of the beginning teacher institute for the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools," Clements said. "I have a lot of experience working on big issues for schools." Among the biggest issues pressing Friends Community School is healthy growth. As enrollment demands outpace the school's capacity, the school is evaluating expansion. The school currently enrolls about 200 students that come from all over Maryland and Washington D.C.

"People come here looking for a slightly different type of school from other choices that they have. We're a religious school, but only about 10 percent of the children in this school are Quakers," Clements said. "Quakers believe that 'there is that of God in every person,' which is a wonderful starting point for education because it forces to have a great respect for the child, their parents and my colleagues." Quaker principles such as equality, stewardship and appreciation for the environment guide the school's curriculum.

Joan Sicher, director of the College Park Nursery School and Kindergarten on College Avenue, is not afraid to let students play. In fact, she encourages them to play as much and as often as they can. "We have parents who want their children to enjoy childhood. And so they don't put so much pressure on the academic in our classroom," Sicher said. "It is more of a play-based learning — thinking and learning through play."

Sicher became the school's director in 1985. In two decades, the school's population has grown from 24 students to 72. Unlike other schools in the area, College Park Nursery School and Kindergarten is a cooperative, an idea birthed in the 1960s where parents own and help run the school.

Haroon Baqai, principal of the Al-Huda School, an Islamic school on Edgewood Road, had a busy first day on Monday. Parents and students, eager to jumpstart the school year, poured in and out of the administration office shoring up any administrative loose ends while Baqai prepared to address students for the first time as their new principal. While Baqai is new to the position, he is not new to the school. He has served Al Huda for a decade working as a teacher, team leader and most recently as a vice principal.

Baqai sees expansion in the school's future. "We are bursting out of the seams here. We have close to 490 students, and we're graduating our first high school class," said Baqai. "Over the next five to 10 years, I could see the 490 doubling." Founded in 1995, Al-Huda School is one of the few accredited full-time Islamic schools in the nation. Al-Huda students take annual standardized test and are assessed regularly. Their curriculum is guided by the Maryland State Voluntary Curriculum and tenants of the Islam. "All the subject areas that we teach are taught through a religious lens," Baqai said.

Maria Bovich, principal of Holy Redeemer School, a Catholic school on Berwyn Road, thinks that her middle-school students will enjoy their new Middle School Wing. The sixth-grade classroom, now located in what was the Holy Redeemer Church's old parish offices, offers students a much larger and brighter room. The school's motto is Excellence in Education with the Power of Faith. The curriculum, the anti-bullying program, Internet safety, disciplinary procedures and everything in between are driven by that motto, Bovich said.

Holy Redeemer is a Catholic school, but students of various faiths attend the school. Prayer is an integral part of the curriculum. "We have prayer services in the morning, a midday prayer before meal and prayer at the end of the day," Bovich said.