Girard College has a new president. Meet F. Christopher Goins.
Girard College "could be a utopia for excellence in education, a true option for parents and families that really changes the game,” its new president said.
F. Christopher Goins, an educator with extensive experience in expanding opportunities for Black and brown children, has been named president of Girard College, the historic Philadelphia boarding school.
Goins, 44, founded a high-performing, non-selective Chicago charter school and worked with the Obama Foundation to build the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a nonprofit that aims to create safe and supportive communities for Black and brown boys. He currently works as chief equity officer for Thrive Chicago, which helps support organizations that serve young people.
The Board of Directors of City Trusts announced Goins’ hiring Monday after a six-month search for the next leader of the storied North Philadelphia school, which educates about 300 children in first through 12th grades. Students, all of whom come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, live on campus during the week.
Girard College was founded in 1848 after Stephen Girard, the banker and merchant, left money in his will to open a boarding school for “poor, white, male orphans.” The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the school integrated in 1965, and a lawsuit later opened it to girls. The school’s mission has also been amended to include students from single-parent homes.
Goins will assume the Girard College presidency July 1. He succeeds Heather Wathington, who led the school from 2018 until last summer, when she resigned to take over a nonprofit that focuses on mentorship.
Bernard W. Smalley, president of the Board of Directors of City Trusts, hailed Goins as an “outstanding educator” and said his “focus on changing outcomes for all children is mission-aligned with our goals for the students of Girard College.”
Goins hadn’t heard of Girard College until a recruiter reached out about the presidency. But once he started learning about the school, he was fascinated by the concept. So much of educators’ struggle revolves not around curriculum and instruction, he said, but external factors.
Too often, a child’s family’s income or the neighborhood where they live relegates them to struggling schools. A boarding school that spends $65,000 a year per student — more than tuition at many private universities — and is available only to children from disadvantaged backgrounds is an amazing concept, Goins said.
“Girard College is an example of true educational equity in action,”he said. “It could be a utopia for excellence in education, a true option for parents and families that really changes the game.”
In the past, Girard’s board went to court to try to end its boarding program to save money; a judge ultimately rejected that plan as violating Stephen Girard’s vision.
Goins said he emphatically wants Girard College to remain a residential school, true to its roots. In fact, he’d like it to serve more students, and perhaps expand to include prekindergarten and kindergarten.
“We can serve more. My plan and my thought is, how do we expand and grow incrementally and grow carefully? We need to make sure that we’re having a deeper impact,” said Goins, whose first job out of college was teaching social studies at Dudley High School, his alma mater in Greensboro, N.C. He was named Guilford County’s youngest “Teacher of the Year” in 2005.
And he’s looking forward to moving to Philadelphia, where one of his mentors, Tony B. Watlington Sr., was just named new superintendent of schools.
“I look forward to being in the same city, and being a thought partner” with Watlington, said Goins, who holds an undergraduate degree from North Carolina A&T University, where he majored in history and secondary education, and a master’s degree in urban educational leadership from the University of Cincinnati.