Discover the future of after-school programs with Principal Monica Murray of John Marshall High School, as she shares the innovative approaches taken to prepare students for the world beyond academia. Take a peek behind the curtain of education's evolution where vocational training meets entrepreneurial spirit, empowering students to step directly into the workforce or launch their own ventures post-graduation. This episode is a treasure trove of insights, from interactive skill workshops to specialized support for student-athletes, showcasing how education can be a launchpad for creativity and success.
Guest(s) Bio:
Monica Murray is a dedicated education professional with a passion for fostering student and staff success through the mastery of learning, the cultivation of meaningful relationships, and the delivery of timely feedback to optimize student engagement. With a career marked by a commitment to educational excellence, Monica has consistently demonstrated her ability to create environments that promote growth and achievement.
In her current role as a Principal, Monica continues to exemplify leadership and vision. Building on her previous experience as an Assistant Principal at Armstrong High School, she has been instrumental in establishing clear goals for curriculum and instruction. Monica's emphasis on backward design for lesson plans, strategic allocation of resources, and regular teacher evaluations has contributed significantly to the overall improvement of student learning outcomes and growth.
Monica's journey in education began as a teacher in the Richmond Public School (RPS) system, where she taught at Thomas C. Boushall Middle, Onslow Minis Middle School, George Wythe High School, and John Marshall High School. Her outstanding contributions to the field were recognized when she was named an RPS Teacher of the Year Finalist and an R.E.B. Award for Teaching Excellence Finalist.
Monica holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from Virginia Union University, a testament to her dedication to academic excellence. She furthered her education at Virginia Commonwealth University, earning both a Master's Degree and a Certificate of Educational Leadership. Monica's educational background, coupled with her practical experience, reflects her ongoing commitment to the advancement of education and the empowerment of students and educators alike.
Resources:
See John Marshall's Spotlight Episode on our YouTube channel. click here. or
https://youtu.be/SDV_hKESMXc
John Marshall's YouTube Channel. click here. or https://www.youtube.com/@JayemJustices
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Principal Murray: because what we realize is that a very small
00:00:03
portion of our student population actually go to
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college and stay.
00:00:07
The majority of them, after COVID, are looking to go right
00:00:12
into the workforce because there are so many opportunities for
00:00:16
them during COVID to work.
00:00:18
So, okay, we need to listen and offer those type of
00:00:24
opportunities.
00:00:25
So we didn't want the kids to just go into fast food working
00:00:30
and a lot of them go into a hospitality.
00:00:32
But what other opportunities are out there and available?
00:00:36
And that's what we began to build our after-school
00:00:39
programming already.
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J. Lee: Hello Principal Murray! How are you today?
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Amazing, I love to hear it.
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Amazing.
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This is my heart aflutter.
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So thank you for being here with us for school.
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After hours We'll talk about all things for these high school
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time programming and education.
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Today we're visiting John Marshalls to talk about the
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transformation that you've done with the school, not just with
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them academically during the day Congratulations on your credit,
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thank you and but transforming it into a model of focusing on
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entrepreneurship but also bringing in resources for kids
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to pursue the skills that may not have them go into college,
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but they can make a decent living.
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So give people a little bit of background about you.
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But if you want to know, they're like.
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Principal Murray, who'd have that?
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So go ahead and introduce yourself and give them a little
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bit about you, Principal Murray.
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Principal Murray: Well, thank you for having me.
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I'm Monica Murray.
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I am the proud principal of John Marshall High School here
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in Richmond, virginia, but we exceed expectations with
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excellence every single day.
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I've been in education now for 27 years.
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I've been a teacher, a teacher coach.
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I've also been an administrator as an AP assistant principal
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and now this is year five of my principalship here at John
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Marshall High School.
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Throughout my 10 year I have kind of done a little bit of
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everything.
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After school programming was important and was one of the
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things that drew me to being an educator, because I remember my
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experience in high school and it didn't end when the bell rang.
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We remained after school and it was those moments that we
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really enjoyed or found love for one of our classmates, and I
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would say it's the extension of the education process.
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So here at John Marshall we're a title one school and I say
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often that we use title one funds to enhance our learning.
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But 21st century brings the fun in the afternoon, so we knew we
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had to find funds to make sure that our after school program
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was robust and 21st century allows us to do that Awesome.
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J. Lee: So some of the things that have happened in John
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Marshall, like you will have blown my room.
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That's one of the things.
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You also got your school accreditation but you also
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transformed the model of what you wanted to act as school
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programs to look like after COVID.
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So kind of woke us through that process of what it looked like
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before to what it is now Right.
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So when?
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Principal Murray: I first started working at John Marshall
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.
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I was a part of our after school program and it was very
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easy to get kids to stay after school.
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All you had to say was we were feeding them or we had some type
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of activity and kids stayed after school.
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But then when COVID hit and also our district changed our
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time of day, so our day ends at four o'clock.
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So after COVID and that day ending, it was ghost town.
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When we first got back, trying to get kids involved and
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acclimated again to what school looked like, what the morning,
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the beginning of school looks like, all the way through the
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end was difficult, and so we knew that we had to do some
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things differently.
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And so the easiest population for us to touch were the
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athletes.
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We knew that the athletes were committed because of their
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athletic program, and once we could get them we knew we could
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build other programming around and that they would then
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motivate other kids to begin to stay back.
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So we began to look at what were the needs of the athletes.
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One of the most important things for student athletes is
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to remain eligible so they can play, and that eligibility is
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easy during the season.
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But in the off season, what do we do to make sure that they are
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eligible.
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And so our after-school programming offers opportunity
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for our tutoring programs and getting them engaged and
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introduced to that living-way profession.
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Because what we realize is that a very small portion of our
00:04:47
student population actually go to college and stay.
00:04:51
The majority of them, after COVID, are looking to go right
00:04:57
into the workforce Because there are so many opportunities for
00:05:00
them during COVID to work.
00:05:03
So, okay, we need to listen and offer those type of
00:05:08
opportunities.
00:05:09
So we didn't want the kids to just go into fast food working
00:05:14
and a lot of them go into a hospitality.
00:05:16
But what other opportunities are out there and available?
00:05:20
And that's what we began to build our after-school
00:05:23
programming around.
00:05:25
J. Lee: So in that sense, you know you have some
00:05:28
entrepreneurship that's going on , mm-hmm, tell us a little bit
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about that.
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Yes, yes.
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Principal Murray: So each year we do an entrepreneur fair where
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we bring in entrepreneurs in the area.
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The kids get to meet them, make connections with them, learn
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about their business, and it opens our students up to
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different opportunities.
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So we just had our entrepreneur fair and we had entrepreneurs
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here who own their own cooking and catering business, mental
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health services, truck drivers the gamut from those that offer
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childcare had created their own art Right, and so we had folks
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who had earring stands and hat stands and t-shirt stands and a
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snow cone machine and the kids got to experience that right.
00:06:19
And so when we figured out what areas the kids were interested
00:06:24
in, we started teaching those skills.
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One of the ones that we're working on right now is we're
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preparing for senior installation is the balloon
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craft and the opportunity that kids have now to create these
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experiences or decorate places using balloons.
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It's a big thing, mm-hmm, and every event that we have in the
00:06:47
school we're asking for a balloon arch or towers Mm-hmm.
00:06:51
The kids are learning how to do that and create that and they
00:06:55
can then create a business of their own right.
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We also have photography, videography and social media,
00:07:04
which is huge Mm-hmm, and kids are monetizing their skills on
00:07:11
that social media platform Mm-hmm.
00:07:13
We have introduced and really fallen in love with a kid who
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just graduated but before he graduated.
00:07:19
Because of his skill behind the camera and his ability to push
00:07:23
that on social media, he now has his own photography business,
00:07:27
thriving photography business, and he's in college right here,
00:07:34
and so now we're able to hire him to do some of the work for
00:07:39
us so he gets to give back to his album All right and that's
00:07:43
the important thing trying to connect students back to where
00:07:48
they started, and I know in previous conversations, not just
00:07:51
with other colleagues but even with my person, that's behind
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the camera, like we talked about students going to have these
00:07:59
robust experiences in middle school.
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J. Lee: They're getting the activities, all the things, but
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somewhere in high school like it's lost in translation and
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they don't have the same type of fun, they don't have the same
00:08:11
type of experience.
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And to see how you capture that here for them, to build them
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for careers, literally outside of the building, I think is
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amazing and that's one of the things that we were talking
00:08:24
about in our conversations, like who's capitalizing on social
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media, capitalizing on creating content, and that's one of the
00:08:32
things that you were able to do with John Marshall.
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Go ahead and tell about it.
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Principal Murray: So when I first got here, I knew that we
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had to be the owner of our story .
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I didn't want anyone else to tell our story but us, and so I
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knew that social media would be a platform that we could do that
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instantly.
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So we found staff members, especially young staff members,
00:08:57
who we could hone in on and give that responsibility to.
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So immediately we hired two social media court makers that
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do all of our content and promotion.
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They begin, or the kids really begin, to gravitate around them
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like I want to be in the videos, so okay.
00:09:17
So if you want to be in the videos, we will show you how to
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also make the videos, and so they became a part of the
00:09:24
process, because we can show ourselves as adults all day long
00:09:27
, but we really want to highlight the work that the kids
00:09:30
are doing, and so once we established the team, the next
00:09:34
instructions were to our staff members.
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We asked as many staff members who felt comfortable to create a
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social media page.
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Once we had all our staff members create the page, then
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the instruction was we will tag you on everything that we do.
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The axis you repost it.
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So not only we're posting on our page, but now all of our
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staff is reposting the information.
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So we're flooding down the internet and we're all saying
00:10:04
the same thing.
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So then it was just videos of kids and activities.
00:10:09
Now how do we get to show the academics that we're doing?
00:10:12
And so each one of those teachers who have pages get to
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celebrate students and the work that they're doing in the
00:10:18
classrooms.
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Once they post, then we turn around as they admin team and
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repost.
00:10:25
So that creates our content.
00:10:28
So we get to tell our story, what's happening in the building
00:10:31
every single day, and celebrate this great work that we're
00:10:35
doing.
00:10:36
J. Lee: And it is amazing.
00:10:37
So tell us the story or the process of now you going into
00:10:41
getting accreditation yeah, not too many people talk about that
00:10:45
and how does that play a role in after-school time program?
00:10:48
Principal Murray: Yes, yeah.
00:10:49
So you know everybody's seeking that.
00:10:53
I cannot say that we did this on our own.
00:10:57
Our district supported us tremendously.
00:10:59
They sat down with all of us and said what is your needs?
00:11:04
When I told them where it supports, where we looked at our
00:11:08
data, we found out where our deficiencies were, where our
00:11:10
learning gaps were, put a plan together, went to the district
00:11:14
and said this is what we need.
00:11:15
And the districts provided that we got everybody on board.
00:11:20
So we were all speaking the language as a staff.
00:11:23
The goal is accreditation.
00:11:24
When we came, covid hit, kind of put a stop, slow down to that
00:11:31
work.
00:11:32
But we knew we needed a year after COVID to really
00:11:36
acclimatize ourselves back to normalcy.
00:11:38
And then the year later it was putting in that grind to make
00:11:44
sure that everybody understands the importance, how we're gonna
00:11:48
get there and it is okay to ask for what you need.
00:11:51
So introducing that to all of our students as well, because
00:11:57
success gets more success.
00:11:59
The more successful we are, the more excited the kids are, the
00:12:03
more excited the parents.
00:12:05
So again, pushing that story through social media.
00:12:08
So last year, if you go back and you look at our tags, it was
00:12:11
accreditation, loading, accreditation, loading,
00:12:13
accreditation, loading on everything that we were doing,
00:12:17
because we wanted the community behind us, as well as the
00:12:20
students, to know that we have set a goal.
00:12:22
When the kids came back the first day, we told them the
00:12:26
story.
00:12:27
Here is the goal that we're setting.
00:12:29
This is what we did last year, this is our goal for this year,
00:12:34
and every time we had meetings with students, we kept that goal
00:12:37
in front of them Because we wanted them to buy in and have
00:12:41
some ownership of the fact that.
00:12:43
The goal was that we were the first comprehensive high school
00:12:46
enrichment to be accredited again.
00:12:49
J. Lee: So to accomplish that was just, truly, truly amazing
00:12:55
and thinking about that now, not just that process, but being
00:12:59
here.
00:12:59
What comes to mind and what feelings do you have?
00:13:02
Principal Murray: Proud, grateful, but understanding that
00:13:08
to keep it, the work is twice as hard.
00:13:11
So now we're looking at what processes we have in place that
00:13:17
worked we're gonna keep those and what process do we need to
00:13:22
improve on so that we keep it.
00:13:24
Because now really is the hard work, because you set the floor
00:13:29
at the benchmark.
00:13:31
J. Lee: Now we're trying to now push ourselves to go beyond that
00:13:34
Right, and how does after school help you with that goal?
00:13:38
Principal Murray: After school.
00:13:39
It affords us the opportunity to give the extra to get the one
00:13:43
problem that we didn't get to get in class.
00:13:45
So to have the conversation or to motivate really them to come
00:13:50
back the next day.
00:13:52
Because if I'm doing what I need to do in class, I have
00:13:56
after school to look forward to.
00:13:57
And we try to make after school look completely different than
00:14:02
the 90 minute block of instruction.
00:14:05
So infusing the instruction into the fun is really the way
00:14:11
we do it.
00:14:12
Here's the fun and before you know it, we're reminding you
00:14:15
that in biology class y'all talked about sales today.
00:14:18
Or in math class you had functions that you had to
00:14:21
express.
00:14:22
Oh, in English y'all were reading.
00:14:24
So in theater we're going through and then we're acting
00:14:28
out some of what you were reading.
00:14:31
So they're getting it, but they're just getting it
00:14:35
subliminally in the end of life, yeah.
00:14:39
J. Lee: Amazing, amazing good stuff.
00:14:41
So we're gonna go ahead and switch over to our professional
00:14:46
slides.
00:14:46
Okay so, principal Murray, my question for you is for those
00:14:51
that are in leadership and they are striving for this
00:14:55
accreditation, but also to engage their students what
00:14:59
encouragement would you give them and what advice would you
00:15:01
give them for this process?
00:15:03
Principal Murray: So encouragement is to always know
00:15:06
that you're doing what you're doing for children, keeping that
00:15:10
in the forefront, that we do this work because we desire
00:15:15
student success and to grow children.
00:15:18
I would also say keep it simple and keep the main thing, the
00:15:24
main thing, right.
00:15:25
So building relationships with staff and making staff feel
00:15:29
empowered to make decisions and build a staff capacity helps
00:15:34
staff understand the importance of the work that we're doing.
00:15:38
So you got to feed the staff so they don't eat the children.
00:15:46
Making sure staff feel heard, value and supported right.
00:15:52
Once they feel heard, value and supported, then they're going
00:15:56
to give everything that they can to their students.
00:15:59
Students need to know what their goal is.
00:16:02
So keeping the goal in front of the students and then the
00:16:06
community needs to understand that they are part of success.
00:16:11
Feed the staff so they don't eat the children.
00:16:13
Keep the goal in front of the students and make sure community
00:16:17
is involved.
00:16:19
J. Lee: Well, if anybody wanted to get in touch with you,
00:16:21
Principal Murray, you know, go ahead and give me your
00:16:23
information so they can reach out to you.
00:16:25
Principal Murray: Absolutely.
00:16:25
So I can be reach here at the school, but through phone,
00:16:29
that's 780-6052-804780-6052.
00:16:35
But the easiest way to get in contact with me is through email
00:16:39
and that's mglasmglass at RVASchoolsnet.
00:16:45
J. Lee: Well, thank you so much for your time.
00:16:47
Principal Murray, you're welcome.
00:16:48
Well, everyone, that brings us to the end of our show.
00:16:52
If you like what you heard and you enjoyed our conversation,
00:16:55
make sure that you're following us on YouTube, but also hit that
00:16:58
like button so we know what you are enjoying.
00:17:00
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00:17:05
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00:17:08
If you want to listen to our audio version as well, to get
00:17:11
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00:17:14
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00:17:19
School After Hours.
00:17:20
Well, that's all I have for today.
00:17:23
In the words of Mr Arthur Ashe, start where you are, use what
00:17:27
you have, do what you can.
00:17:28
Until next time, y'all, bye, bye.
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