Cape's new assistant principal brings real world experience

Cape High's new assistant principal has a lot to smile about these days.

“I love being down here near the beach,” said Angela Johnson, hired in July to fill a vacancy left when Michael Young moved to the district office as supervisor of curriculum.

The Philadelphia native brings 15 years of education experience to the district, most recently as an administrator of Philadelphia's Overbrook High School - actor Will Smith's alma mater.

But Johnson didn't start out as an educator. The 1993 Indiana University of Pennsylvania graduate earned a business degree in marketing that she used to start her own company. Her consulting firm recruited computer programmers from Canada to help in the banking sector. Seven years of recruiting foreign programmers to work in the United States made her wonder why there aren't more U.S. citizens qualified for technical jobs.

“It made me think that I should become involved in schools and get students involved in programming,” she said.

Johnson earned a master's degree in education from Wilmington University and got her first teaching job in a fifth-grade classroom at Colwick Elementary in the Colonial School District. She said she enjoyed the students but she realized she wanted to work with high school-aged ones. She next took a job with Appoquinimink School District teaching business, finance and accounting.

“It got me to where I wanted to be,” she said.

Johnson's warm personality shines through the second one meets her. Talking to her can feel like talking with an old friend. Conversations are punctuated with her warm laugh and ready smile.

She also has a kind soul.

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Johnson said the television coverage broke her heart.

She knew she had to do something to help, so after three years teaching in Appoquinimink, she said, she took a job with the Small Business Administration helping process loans for people affected by the hurricane. The job took her to Texas - where she met her future husband - and eventually led her back into the education field as an administrator for the New Orleans Recovery School District. New Orleans reformed its schools following Hurricane Katrina, turning most of the city's schools into charter schools.

As assistant principal of a school in the 9th Ward, one of the hardest hit by the storm, Johnson said, about 85 percent of the students in her district were living in FEMA trailers. Many returned without their parents, she said.

“That's how I learned to negotiate,” she said. “If I had an issue with a student, I really had to learn to work with the student.”

A year into the job, her father became ill and Johnson moved to Middletown to help care for him. She put feelers out for jobs in the area and the Philadelphia school system called her first. Flexibility became her middle name as she shuttled between administrative jobs in Philadelphia and Chester.

Mid-year into a job at Martin Luther King High School, the Chester superintendent offered her a job as principal of a charter school focused on preparing students for healthcare careers.

“It worked. I had a 98 percent graduation rate and 95 percent attendance rate,” she said. Johnson said she also made use of Widener University - only two blocks away - and created a dual-enrollment program for her students so they could pursue college credits.

“My students were the first nursing students involved in the program,” she said.

Despite its successes, she said, the Chester school closed along with others because of financial restraints. Johnson returned to Philadelphia as an auxiliary - another word for a substitute assistant principal.

As an auxiliary she covered everything from maternity leave to time off, serving in 29 different schools before ending up at Overbrook High School.

Johnson said she applied for the Cape job because her husband may transfer to an office downstate. The two continue to live in Middletown; Johnson's grown son, Christopher, lives and works in Philadelphia, Pa.

The plan is to eventually move to southern Delaware. Then, she said, they'll have to decide between a country home or something more urban.

“Everyone I've talked to has asked, 'Why Cape?' and I say why not,” she said. “It's a great school.”