January 05, 2014
Nothing but net: Sheila Harrity ’87 tops a winning career in education by being named National High School Principal of the Year
By Vicki-Ann Downing
Dr. Sheila M. Harrity ’87, the National High School Principal of the Year, stood in line last fall at a gala in Washington, D.C., waiting to meet Arne Duncan, the U.S. secretary of education.
With only a few minutes to think about how to introduce herself, Harrity extended her hand and said: “Providence College Lady Friars, Class of ’87!”
The connection was immediate.
“He said, ‘You’re a hoopster! We’re the same age. I played at Harvard,’” said Harrity. “He went on to tell me who he knew at PC who had been an athlete. I had a feeling he was like me, an athlete first. We held up the line talking sports. Later, he wrote me a note, ‘Congratulations on your huge award. I’m pleased a fellow hoopster is doing so well.’”
It’s not surprising that Harrity mentioned her Providence College connections up front when she met Duncan.
“There’s a real PC connection to who am,” said Harrity, who was a guard on the women’s basketball team. “Those were the best years of my life.”
Harrity learned in September that she had been selected the National High School Principal of the Year in a competition sponsored by MetLife and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. The 50 finalists included the principal of Columbine High School in Colorado. But Harrity’s success as principal of Worcester Technical High School in Worcester, Mass. — which also was named a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education, establishing it as one of the 286 best public or private schools in the country — won out.
Harrity was handpicked to be principal when Worcester Tech reopened in a new $90-million building in 2006. The school encompasses 400,000 square feet over four floors. Its 1,400 students staff a full-service bank, day spa, bakery, veterinary clinic, 125-seat restaurant, 16-bay auto garage that services 250 vehicles a week, and a graphics shop that does all the printing for the City of Worcester.
The student population mirrors the city’s demographics: 38 percent Hispanic, 15 percent African-American, and 47 percent white. Since Harrity’s arrival, the school has added Advanced Placement classes and closed the achievement gap between white students and students of color. Standardized test scores have improved. Eighty-three percent of graduates go to college, and the dropout rate is only 1.5 percent.
Harrity, who calls Worcester Tech “the school that works,” has an administrative team that includes four assistant principals and a career education director.
“It’s an educator’s dream working here,” she said.
Harrity grew up in Worcester, the youngest of seven children. She came to PC for the first time in junior high school to attend a basketball camp. As an undergraduate, she majored in social work, though she wanted to be a preschool teacher. PC only offered a secondary education major, and Harrity didn’t want to work with high school students because “I was afraid of them.”
Her basketball teammate, Doris Burke ’87, ’92G, & ’05Hon., who is a basketball analyst for ESPN, remembers Harrity as “such a fun-loving person, always easy with a laugh.”
“Once she graduated and settled into her career in education, her passion and commitment became evident almost immediately,” said Burke. “She found her purpose and pursued it with great professionalism while still maintaining the irrepressible personality that made her so well liked at PC. I am very proud and lucky to count her as a friend.”
Following graduation, Harrity earned two master’s degrees — one in early childhood education from Worcester State University and one in moderate special needs education from Assumption College — while coaching field hockey and softball at Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester and working as assistant women’s basketball coach at Holy Cross.
She was teaching children with severe special needs in 1993 when the superintendent asked her to join a three-member team that would address the 15 percent drop-out rate in Worcester’s high schools. When she told him she couldn’t work with high school students, he responded, “Yes you can — I see how you coach.”
“He recruited me like an athlete,” said Harrity. “He picked me up at my house and brought me to the facility. He told me that with students with special needs, their needs are visible. For high school dropouts, ‘You just have to get to know them.’”
Forty-seven high school dropouts were invited back to school, and Harrity was their mathematics teacher.
“At first it was really challenging,” she said. “They weren’t ones to trust. They needed a physical education class to graduate, so I offered to teach it. I took them to play basketball. I won their respect by playing basketball. It broke down all barriers.”
Harrity remained with the program for five years. It grew to serve 250 students. A program for school-age mothers was added, along with a program to teach immigrants English. Her success led to her appointment as coordinator of Work for Worcester’s Youth, where she helped find summer jobs for students and assisted them with college and financial aid applications.
“Unfortunately, I was selected the Worcester Public Schools Teacher of the Year,” said Harrity. “I was taken out of the classroom and made school-to-career district coordinator for the entire city. I missed the direct contact with students.”
In 2002, Harrity went to Wachusett Regional High School in Holden, Mass., first as assistant principal, then as principal. When a telephone call came inviting her to become the first principal of the new Worcester Tech, she was excited at “the thought of coming home and working in the city.” But it wouldn’t be easy — she was the first woman in the job and the first “non-vokie,” with no experience in vocational education.
“A lot of people’s hopes and dreams were invested in this facility, and they were expecting change,” said Harrity. “It had been the lowest-performing school in the city and one of the poorest performing vocational schools in the state. People thought I was crazy. I thought it was an incredible opportunity. I looked at it as an educator’s dream.
“Because it’s just like athletics,” she said. “At the end of the game you want the ball in your hands.”
Every spring, with help from an anonymous donor, Harrity brings a motivational speaker to Worcester to give students a “pre-game” talk before they take their standardized exams. All 1,400 students and 150 staff are brought to the renovated Hanover Theatre in downtown Worcester for the experience — because, at PC, “there was never a time that we ran on the court thinking we weren’t going to beat the other team,” Harrity said.
“I don’t look like a lot of our students, and I wasn’t raised in a project, but I think life can be difficult for many people. We all have crosses, but a cross is different in the project — it’s food, shelter, clothing. I believe that life is about how you handle adversity when — not if — it comes your way.”
Last fall, in addition to addressing a session of Congress, Harrity came to PC to talk to the women’s basketball team about her life since graduation. Married, with two daughters, she earned a doctorate in educational leadership last year from Northeastern University.
On a November morning, she walked the halls of Worcester Tech, carrying a basketball under her arm as a prop. When students called out, “Hi, Ms. Harrity!” she responded with a fist bump.
“I always light up when I have a basketball in my hands,” she said.
