Masterman's new principal feeling right at home

JESSICA BROWN is once again walking the halls of Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School, where she was once a student and novice administrator.

Now in her 40s, Brown is the new principal of the grades 5-through-12 magnet school, a high-performing district school and a two-time recipient of the National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award. She attended Masterman in fifth and sixth grades, right before the school integrated grades 9 through 12. Years later, in 2005, she was a principal intern at the school, on Spring Garden Street near 16th.

So far, the students are her favorite part of the job. "I am so proud of the students, and I look forward every day to coming to work," she said.

Then there are the tougher aspects of her job: the financials.

Like all district schools, Masterman is affected by a financially distressed district that has resulted in reduced staff and overcrowded classrooms. Masterman's stellar academic reputation has not shielded it from the district's funding realities.

The school, with nearly 1,200 students, has lost nine teachers and two counselors since 2011. Masterman lost its librarian, but an anonymous donor ended up paying for the position last year. This year, Masterman has a nurse and a librarian, both funded by the district.

"I think there's a misconception that Masterman has more than other schools," Brown said, sitting in her new office. "Just like all of the schools in the district, Masterman has been affected by budget cuts."

Brown is up for the new challenge at Masterman because she's had experience at a district magnet school with similar issues: the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush, in the Northeast.

Brown wasn't looking to leave Rush, where she was its founding principal in 2008 and balanced a $3.3 million school budget. "I had a wonderful experience at Rush, [but] Masterman provided a new experience, and the opportunity only comes up once in a blue moon," she said.

Brown took over this summer from retiring Masterman principal Marjorie Neff, who later was named to the School Reform Commission by Mayor Nutter.

Education was not originally on her career-choice list, Brown said. She grew up in West Mount Airy, the daughter of longtime district teachers Shirley and David Brown. She attended private school, then Masterman when it was a middle school, and graduated from Germantown Friends.

Brown went on to Kenyon College, in Ohio, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she received a master's degree in education. She said she "resisted for so long" the urge to go into education because she wanted to distinguish herself from her educator parents. But on her first day observing a class at Kensington High School, all that resistance just melted away.

"It was so rewarding to work with students," she said. Brown decided right then that she would work at an urban school.

After teaching social studies and English as a second language for a few years in the district, Brown attended a Lehigh University principal-certification program and interned under then-Masterman principal John Frangipani, now an assistant superintendent for the Vineland (N.J.) Public Schools.

"She took to the position," Frangipani said. "She came on board and was able to work well with teachers, students and parents."

She took part in the program with Cindy Farlino and Otis Hackney, now principals of Meredith School and South Philadelphia High School, respectively.

Brown also has worked at Kensington High School for the Creative and Performing Arts and at Jay Cooke Middle School.

Many Masterman parents showed up at a June meeting at which Brown was introduced, said Madhu Narula, who is with the Masterman Home and School Association and whose son Manas is a seventh-grader.

"We saw a very confident person in front of us," Narula said.

"She knows what the school district is going through [and] she still accepted the position to make a difference."

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