Maisha Copeland

Maisha Copeland, proud member of the 2014 cohort, has gone on to create her own school and is presently the leader of the Roberto Clemente School, where she has been principal for the past three years. She shared that being part of SPA gave her a great opportunity for this prepare for this role. Four other principals in her network are SPA alumni, so from the time she interviewed for her current position, being a part of SPA gave her a professional edge and the confidence of being connected to a program known for producing phenomenal leaders.

Maisha is responsible for a school community of 542 students from kindergarteners to eighth graders, as well as fifty staff. Her philosophy on leadership is that it is very much a collaborative experience. She is a transformational leader, adapting to the needs of her school and the surrounding environment, and building from there to provide what’s best and most crucial for her students. Maisha recalled role playing at SPA and stressed that experiences such as these helped her to handle the constant problem solving that is a part of her day-to-day job. Her role also requires her to be rely heavily on a constant flow of data, and encouraging her staff to do the same has helped her to turn her school into a data-driven school. She encourages and trains staff to use seek optimum methods of collecting a wide variety of information to ensure better results for kids and feels that her course work at SPA taught her to think about data on deeper levels and on a myriad of levels.

On another SPA-light note, Maisha and her staff moved her school to a level one this year! She credits a great deal of that success on the skill set, resilience, and courage she developed at SPA. She has held on to SPA's lessons in problem solving and the program's emphasis on remembering that you have a network you can rely on. She left us with this gift of wisdom: "Even if everyone isn't on board and doesn't believe in your vision, if you're choosing whats best for the kids, you will work it out."