Principal: College Readiness Primary Goal for High School

Seven Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools have new principals this year. This is the first of a series of interviews with the new administrators about their goals for the schools they now run.

Joseph Nohra Jr. drives almost an hour each day from Trumbull County to his new job at . He's the principal of P.R.I.D.E., Producing Responsible Individuals Dedicated to Excellence, one of five small schools within Heights High. The school was split in 2004 as part of the Ohio High School Transformation Initiative, where more than 70 high schools across the state were divided into smaller schools.

Before coming to the Heights, Nohra was a principal at Fitch High School in Youngstown. He's worked in five districts as a principal, teacher and coach. He has a degree in special education, a master's in administration and is working on his doctorate in educational administration. He sat down with Cleveland Heights Patch to discuss his goals for P.R.I.D.E.

Cleveland Heights Patch: What's your favorite thing about Cleveland Heights?

Joseph Nohra Jr.: I always tell people Cleveland Heights is turbo-charged compared to where I've been. I mean I think the district does a tremendous job of earmarking everything we do for our kids in our community. It's like they hit a bulls-eye on everything.

From all the initiatives with teaching, all the initiatives with students and all the initiatives with what they do with the community, it just seems like they are on the ball right now. And that's not always easy to do. There are a lot of districts that struggle with everything from how they spend their money to how they utilize their resources; it just seems that they are way ahead here of the game. That's been the most impressive thing.

And I would also include the teaching staff. It is probably -- and I've been in five districts -- by far the most dynamic group of teachers I've ever worked with. What they achieve and how hard they work at it is short of spectacular.

Cleveland Heights Patch: What do you think P.R.I.D.E. does well?

Nohra: What I like is the interaction between the staff and the kids. I think that's pretty impressive. It's at a high level, the extra things that staff do for kids.

Cleveland Heights Patch: Such as extracurricular activities?

Nohra: No, I mean our teachers use a teaming approach when working with freshmen, and they are constantly, as a group of teachers, meeting with the student and meeting with the family. You know that's an example of an intervention when there is high interaction between teachers and students. I'm talking about in the classroom. And additional interventions to help each student.

Cleveland Heights Patch: What changes would you like to implement and what goals do you have for P.R.I.D.E.?

Nohra: I would like to institute more of a college saturation model, where students are exposed more to what's going to happen after high school and receive more exposure to what they could learn to in college. And I'd like to also take strategies that are considered to be best practice right now, which center around inquiry and collaboration, and use those strategies more in our classrooms. Our teachers are wide open to doing that; it's just a matter of instituting it.

Are they going to go into a vocational field? Are they going to go to a college? We want them all to have experiences in the classroom and rigor in the classroom that get them ready for college.

Cleveland Heights Patch: What is your teaching philosophy and how do you think kids learn best?

Nohra: Shared learning: students being involved in setting the goals, students working with the teacher. Instead of the teacher being at the front, and the kids being at the back, the kids needs to be in the front . That's where I've always come from, because I was a special educator, so you learn by doing. That's always been my philosophy.

Cleveland Heights Patch: Why did you choose to pursue a job at P.R.I.D.E.?

Nohra: Well, there was a vacancy here. If I had to say what I like about P.R.I.D.E versus the other small schools . . . that's hard to say because the entire staff in the Cleveland Heights High School is tremendous. But what I like right now is the integrity of the staff, and the professional relationships that are built, that always are focused around, and when it comes down to it, are all about helping kids. It's really hard to say because all the five small schools are excellent, and I would work at any of them. 

Cleveland Heights Patch: What have you done to get to know students, parents and teachers here?

Nohra: The district does so much after school to get to know families in the community, attended so much after school. Our new parent night, open house, our parent-teacher conferences -- those expose an administrator early on to the families. And to get to know kids I'm just visible. I'm out in the hallways. I talk to kids. The kids feel welcome to come in here. They don't have to knock on the door. I never kick a kid out, and you always want to listen to them, more so then talking to them, because they want to express themselves. That's how I've gotten to know the kids.

Cleveland Heights Patch: Tell me about your family.

Nohra: I have two boys, 6 and 4. They're a lot of fun, and my wife is very supportive. She works really hard with both of my boys. Being in administration I'm not always there, so she kind of is our principal at home, and I'm a principal at work. My wife's name is Ann-Marie, and my boys are Joseph and Dominic. Joseph is 6, and Dominic is 4.

Cleveland Heights Patch: What's your favorite place to eat in Cleveland Heights?

Nohra: , the sandwich shop in Coventry. It's absolutely tremendous. It's actually my favorite place.