Dr. Graham Interview

In 2024, Dr. Graham was able to achieve some big feats, as she earned her doctorate in the spring and became principal of West Chester East over the summer. I set out to interview Dr. Graham and ask her about these achievements and get more background information about her career as an educator. 

Question 1: What made you interested in a career in education? 

Answer 1: “I originally wasn’t interested in a career in education. I became interested during the summer between sophomore and junior year in college. I was at Penn State and I came home after the semester. It was June and high schools were still in session. My mom worked in a high school, with special education students, and she invited me in to assist her, so on the day that I came in and helped her in classroom I could tell immediately that I enjoyed working with the students and helping them through some of their academic challenges so when I went back for my junior year at Penn State, I switched majors from Broadcasting to Special Education and I immediately enrolled in education classes so I could fulfill the graduation requirements to graduate as a special education Major.” 

Question 2:  When did you get your doctorate? What is your doctorate in? And Where did you get your doctorate from?

Answer 2: “I completed my doctoral program including the defense of my dissertation in april of this past year so 2024, I attended Neumann university and that is where I got my degree, and the degree is educational leadership and it ended up being a three and a half year program for me to take all of my courses and complete my writing.” 

Question 3: What did the process of getting your doctorate while being vice principal look like?

Answer 3: “So being an administrator in a high school is busy to begin with, so adding courses, and writing to my life was definitely a shift but it really came down to time management. So what changed in my life was more of a commitment at night but I actually found it to be enjoyable because I was able to be around people with similar interests, so it didn’t feel like work, it more felt like a night out of the house doing something different then I would normally be doing. It got extra busy and I had to become a little more self motivated when the classes stopped but the writing for my dissertation began. I spent a lot of time getting my writing and my research done so I would wake up early on Saturday mornings and get that taken care of so I could have the rest of my saturday and sunday to spend time with my family so it was more of an adjustment in my sleep schedule and weekend commitments.” 

Question 4: What was the most significant sacrifice you had to make while pursuing your doctorate?

Answer 4: “I think maybe I did answer this in the question before but probably time, and not that the time was wasted because the time was well spent working toward this goal but it took away from time that I might have spent with my family or doing hobbies that I like to do like cooking or you know watching my kids play sports you know things like that, so it’s just more of my time was reallocated towards writing and I would say that was my biggest sacrifice, but now that I’m finished I feel I’ve regained the time to spend with my family and do things that I like to do.” 

Question 5: As principal what was your plan coming in to change and better East?

Answer 5: “You know it’s funny I didn’t necessarily have a plan only because this promotion came out of the blue, it was unexpected, it wasn’t a job I had applied for but when doctor Brown was hired at the central office level, the opportunity came my way. So I had to quickly put a plan together to start the school year but I think the best part of it was that since I had already been at East, I was very familiar with the building, the staff, the students, and the families. So really what I had to think about was the direction I wanted to see East headed, and doctor Brown did a really nice job of leaving this building in a good place meaning, he was very student focused and aimed to create an environment where students had opportunities to grow and learn and get involved, so that was one of my major priorities right off the bat, to make sure that East continued to be a place where everyone belongs and feels like they can take advantage of challenging classes. They feel like they have an opportunity to participate in an extracurricular activity and they have the ability to make connections with classmates and teachers.” 

Question 6: What is your favorite new part of your job? But also what is the most challenging part of your new job? 

Answer 6: “The favorite part of my new job is what was the favorite part of my old job, which is the ability to interact with staff and students on a regular basis and to have that even exchange of ideas about what we can do to make East a better place. I really love it here, I love our teachers, I love our students and I’m glad people feel comfortable talking to me on both good days and bad days. I feel like at East we’re problem solvers and there’s nothing that we can’t overcome as a team. I think that all of what I just said is my favorite part. The most challenging part of my new role is that I’ve never done it before so I’m learning something new everyday, from teachers who have been here longer than I have, I’m learning from students because they’re comfortable sharing with me their perspective, and I’m learning from families and what they expect the school to do to serve their children. So that’s the most challenging thing, is just learning what I have never had to do before. Again my role of assistant principal was limited, I had responsibilities but now my responsibilities are every component of a school building. So I think by this time next year I’ll be more comfortable in my role.”  

Question 7:  What’s a part of your new career as principal that is very different from your old responsibilities as vice principal?

Answer 7: “I would say the amount of work. And that’s not a complaint, that's just the nature of the job, my email inbox is never empty and that has been a challenge. Because I don’t want to be on email all day because that pulls me out of hallways and out of classrooms so a lot of the paperwork and email checking I do is after school hours. And again that’s fine, that’s not a complaint, it's just a balance that I’ve had to strike.” 

Question 8: What’s a quality you see in the staff here that helps get goals accomplished?

Answer 8: “The quality that I see most consistently throughout our staff is the pride they have in East high school. I think most of the staff likes working here, they like each other, and they really like the students, and because they have such a sense of pride in this school community they want to work hard to continuously improve East high school.”

Question 9: What would you say changes you had to make in order to become principal such as potentially becoming stricter?

Answer 9: “I didn’t necessarily view it as having to become stricter. I am who I am. I tend to try to be kind to everyone and make everyone in the school setting feel included and like they matter and belong here. That is important to me so I don’t think that characteristic should change between an assistant principal and principal role. The biggest thing that changed is probably my awareness of a bigger picture of a school. In my role as assistant principal, my responsibilities were limited but now as the principal they have expanded so I’m learning more about things that I never knew about. I’m learning more about the facilities, I’m learning a lot more about how the other two high schools in our district Henderson and Rustin function because there are a lot of questions that I still have, so I often rely on the other two principles to ask them how they handle certain situations. So it’s just a bigger picture view, but my personality hasn’t changed. I still have the same expectations for our staff and our students that I did before, I just need to become more knowledgeable about things that I never dealt with before.” 

Thank you Dr. Graham for agreeing to do this interview!