The Principal Story: Town Meeting, a CPTV production, will examine the critical role that principals play as instructional leaders in improving school performance and student achievement.

The one-hour, town hall meeting-style program will be broadcast live on CPTV on Thursday, April 23, 2009, starting at 9 p.m. It will be hosted by Steve Kotchko, who also hosts CPTV's On the Record public affairs program. The Principal Story: Town Meeting will be simulcast on WNPR. It will be streamed live here at www.cptv.org and at www.wnpr.org.

Participate in the discussion.

During the live broadcast, call 1.800.842.2788 with your comments or questions, or send an e-mail to principalstory@cptv.org. Selected viewer input will be addressed live on the air.

What is expected of a school principal in the 21st century? What does instructional leadership mean? What constitutes effective practice? What institutional changes are needed to turn around low-performing schools?

For the broadcast, CPTV will bring together a panel of experts to discuss issues tied to school leadership in Connecticut, and to explore promising best practices that have been implemented in schools around the country. The panelists include: Steven Adamowski, superintendent of Hartford Public Schools CT; Stephen (Steve) Perry, principal of Capitol Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, CT; Barbara E. Mechler, principal of Prospect Street School in Naugatuck, CT; and Alex Johnston, founder of the Connecticut Coalition for Achievement (ConnCAN) in New Haven, CT.

The program will be rebroadcast on CPTV on Friday, April 24, 2009 at 10:30 p.m.

In the fall of 2009, The Principal Story: Town Meeting will be rebroadcast on CPTV in conjunction with the premiere of The Principal Story, a one-hour documentary that will air on P.O.V. on September 15, 2009 at 10 p.m. The Principal Story is a national PBS broadcast film and media outreach project. The Principal Story tells two stories, painting a dramatic portrait of the challenges facing America's public schools -- and of the great difference a dedicated principal can make. For more information on the film and related outreach, visit www.wallacefoundation.org/principalstory.

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PANELISTS

Superintendent of one of Connecticut’s most-challenged school districts, Steven Adamowski is committed to raising test scores, improving early literacy and redesigning high schools in Hartford. Before coming to Hartford, Adamowski gained national recognition in Cincinnati, Ohio, using similar measures, which led to dramatic gains in student achievement. He will speak about the pressures and rewards of being a school administrator in a large city.

Steve Perry is an author and high school principal. He founded the Capital Preparatory Magnet School, a year-round college preparatory school with a social justice theme. The public school in Hartford sends 100 percent of its students to various colleges each year. Recently, Steve stirred emotions and debate in the black community with his best-selling and controversial book titled Man Up! Nobody Is Coming to Save Us.

A first-year elementary school principal in Naugatuck, Barbara Mechler has worked in education for 26 years. She has taught every grade in elementary education and served as a literacy consultant in Fairfield County. In her new role as top administrator at Prospect Street School, she is excited about helping teachers look at instructional strategies that best help children learn academically and socially.

The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) is an advocacy organization building a new movement of concerned Connecticut citizens working to create fundamental change in our education system. Based in New Haven, CT, ConnCAN follows in the tradition of Connecticut’s historically known advocacy movement, which ranged from the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association to Harriet Beecher Stowe and the abolitionists.

Before helping to found ConnCAN, Alex Johnston directed operations at the New Haven Housing Authority, working as a member of the management team charged with turning the agency around from the brink of receivership. A graduate of Harvard University, Alex earned a doctorate of philosophy degree in politics from Oxford’s Lincoln College on a Rhodes Scholarship, where he studied the impact of government funding on nonprofit service providers.

“The twin achievement gaps -- between the rich and poor students in our state and between all of our students and their peers around the world -- are the most urgent social and economic problems facing Connecticut.” -- Alex Johnston, founder of Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN)