Seven years after Jason Griffiths founded the specialized institution with only 60 students, Brooklyn Latin has ranked as the state's top public high school by U.S. News and World Report, has acquired a new building, and has grown to 10 times its initial size.
But now, Griffiths is leaving to run a charter school in Harlem — because, he said, the city's bureaucratic requirements were wasting his work time and stripping him of the ability to effectively run his school.
"Over time I wasn't able to lead the school in the way I wanted," said Griffiths, noting that he was often stuck in full-day meetings with the Department of Education over the city's new Common Core standards, which he said Brooklyn Latin's curriculum already met and exceeded. "We're working 12-hour and 16-hour days, and if you're taking a full day out of a week [for a meeting] that's a lot of time...It had a detrimental effect on me personally, on my ability to connect with teachers and with students."
Griffiths, who pioneered the rigorous International Baccalaureate academic program at Brooklyn Latin, said the city also frequently delayed paying the required fees to the nonprofit IB organization that sanctions schools' participation in the curriculum.
"I once thought I wanted to be involved in policy, and I don't anymore," admitted Griffiths, claiming that "all the bureaucratic checks and balances" of the city's public school system prolonged "getting essential items paid for."
Now Griffiths, who created the public school as a traditional institution with uniforms and Latin taught all four years, hopes to have real autonomy as the principal of Harlem Village Academy Charter School, since the same procedures for public schools do not apply.
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