The Brooklyn Paper reports that a downtown Brooklyn principal was awarded the largest performance bonus check of those handed out by The Board of Education for the 2008 school year.
Pam Taranto, of Brooklyn International High School, walked away with $25,000 for her efforts in improving the performance of the downtown school. It was the highest individual sum of the $8.3 million in bonuses awarded this year to teachers and administrators.
Under her leadership, the school at the corner of Flatbush Avenue Extension and Concord Street, earned the highest score in New York in the latest round of progress reports. A major factor in the high score is the school’s on-time graduation rate, which sits at a whopping 80 per cent.
“The graduation rate is more impressive because Brooklyn International only admits recent immigrants learning English as a second language,” writes Zeke Faux of The Paper.
The average at schools across the city hovers at about 50 per cent. Another coup for Taranto is the incredible rate at which Brooklyn International’s graduates attend college: 95 per cent.
“The staff deserves the credit,” Taranto told The Brooklyn Paper. “Something this amazing doesn’t happen because of one person.”
Since 1993, the school has increased its community from 30 students to 400. It has a long and critical relationship with the Peace Corps Fellows program, with returned volunteers recruited to teach at the school. Faux writes that the multicultural experience of these men and women, “helps teachers develop collaborative curriculums based on the philosophy that being bilingual is ‘an asset, not a liability.’ “
The modest Principal, who took over the ranks of Brooklyn International 2 years ago, told the The Paper she will use some of the money to reward her staff.
“Maybe there’ll be time for me to take the teachers out to dinner,” Taranto said.
