For Masterman School's New Principal, It's Back to the Future
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The new principal at the Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia is no stranger to the school. She was once a student there.
Jessica Brown, 48, not only was a middle school student at Masterman, but she served as a principal intern there in 2005.
"It is definitely a neat energy for me here, currently, to walk the halls and to think about fifth and sixth grade and the classrooms I was in."
Brown was the founding principal at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, before she took over as principal of the high-performing magnet school this month. Masterman, at 17th and Spring Garden Streets, consistently ranks among the top performing schools in Pennsylvania.
Brown succeeds principal Marjorie Neff, who retired and was appointed to the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.
Brown says Masterman, which comprises grades five through 12, has not been immune to district budget cuts. She says district cuts have cost her schools two counselors and nine teachers in recent years.
"Everybody's doing ten times more than they've ever done in the past few years, with more and more responsibilities," she tells KYW Newsradio.
