By Ana Rodriguez Soto - The Archdiocese of Miami

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

Richard Jean speaks to members of the choir and instrumentalists after the opening of school Mass Aug. 31.

SOUTHWEST RANCHES � On Day 17 as principal of Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School, Richard Jean huddled with the singers and instrumentalists who had played at the opening-of-school Mass.

He had noticed that, unlike the football or volleyball players, these kids were not wearing special shirts announcing their involvement in the choir. We�re going to get you special shirts, he told them.

�They�re singing and praising God and they don�t have a shirt representing that. They should be recognized. They�re just as important as any athletic sport,� Jean explained later, noting that �not everybody can play sports but everybody can be involved in something.�

An interesting viewpoint from someone who went to college on a basketball scholarship and at one point entertained the idea of playing in the NBA.

�I love sports but I respect education more,� said Jean, whose life story is quintessentially Miamian, and whose current status as the archdiocese�s only Haitian-born principal is a validation of everything Catholic schools strive to do � and succeed at.

Jean, 41, stands 6�2� and wears a crisp suit-and-tie to school every day. He was born in Port-au-Prince and came to Miami in 1975, at age 5, with his mother and three siblings. She raised them alone but insisted on a Catholic education.

He attended St. Mary Cathedral School (class of 1984) and Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School (class of 1988), where he contributed to a state championship in basketball his sophomore year and led Miami-Dade County in scoring as a junior and senior.

What he learned only after he graduated is that his pastor at the time, the late Msgr. Gerard LaCerra of St. Mary Cathedral, �had families who helped pay for us to go to school.�

HARD TIME
Jean says he had a hard time in elementary school because he spoke only French and Creole (which, ironically, he no longer speaks, although he does understand it).

�I was in a daze for years because they were talking around me. I didn�t know what was going on,� he recalled. �I thought I was dumb.�

Once the English �clicked� around fifth or sixth grade, he wound up an honor student in high school.

�I was the king of the mountain. I was ready for school (every day),� he said, noting that the experience has added to his perspective as an educator.

�Kids don�t wake up wanting (to fail),� he said. There is always a reason, and it is up to their teachers to figure out the problem.

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

Richard Jean, the archdiocese's first Haitian principal and a product of the archdiocese's Catholic schools, poses in his new office at Archbishop McCarthy High School.

MOVE NORTH
After high school, Jean attended Duquesne University in Pittsburgh on a basketball scholarship � the only way he could afford to go. He says he was ready to leave south Florida.

�I love the mix of cultures here,� he said, but up north �you see so many more (black) doctors, lawyers, judges compared to down here.�

He left Duquesne after his second year when a new coach came in and finished his bachelor�s degree at Barry University in Miami Shores, also on a basketball scholarship. (Eventually he earned his master�s there as well.)

He says he never thought of education as a career. He majored in sports management with a minor in business administration and began looking toward playing in the NBA. Then the father of a friend suggested, �On your down time, come to my school and sub. You�ll be a great role model.�

Jean was skeptical. Me? But �that�s how I got into education,� he said.
Somewhere along the way, he also remembered why he had begun playing basketball in the first place: �To go to college and graduate with a degree.�

After obtaining his certification, he began working as dean of students and basketball coach at Archbishop Coleman Carroll High School in southwestern Miami-Dade County. After a year there, he moved to his alma mater, Curley Notre Dame, where he taught math and physical education and served as dean of students.

�My favorite job,� he calls it. �The great thing about being dean of students is you get to interact more with the students. As a principal, you interact more with adults.�

In 2003, at age 32, he was named principal of St. Francis Xavier School in Overtown. A year later, he became assistant principal at St. Timothy School in Miami, taking over as principal a year later.

That�s where he was this August when he was asked to succeed McCarthy�s founding principal, Richard Pehrla, and become only the second principal in the school�s 12-year history. Located in southwestern Broward County, McCarthy has 1,400 students and a waiting list.

Jean, who lives in downtown Miami with his Bahamian-born wife and three children, had to make a lot of changes to his life in order to accept the job, switching his oldest son, 16, to McCarthy and his daughter, 7, to nearby St. Bernadette. He also drops off his year-old son at nursery school on the way to school each morning.

�We had to move everybody,� says Jean, who seldom leaves the office before 6:30 p.m.

�BIG LEAGUES�
While he enjoyed his time at St. Timothy � where he was highly regarded by parents and faculty -- Jean says he feels privileged to have been given the opportunity to be principal of a high school. �It�s like going up to the big leagues.�

In fact, with a 61-acre campus and a new football stadium, McCarthy High is �by far the biggest school I�ve ever been at,� Jean said. �We have the potential to even grow more. This really is an up and coming school.�

Jean praises the �all-star� faculty he inherited, as well as the staff and assistant principals. �The school is well-run.�

Christian Brother Richard DeMaria, executive director of Christian Formation and superintendent of schools for the archdiocese, has known Jean since he worked at Curley Notre Dame, where Brother DeMaria was principal.

�I have watched him grow over the past years into a very strong administrator who has the ability to win the confidence of students, faculty and parents,� Brother DeMaria said. �I am confident that he will demonstrate those same qualities in his new position at Archbishop Edward McCarthy High School.�

�He�s going to be the greatest high school principal in the whole archdiocese,� said an ebullient Father Brendan Dalton, supervising principal of McCarthy High. �He�s very sociable and very out there with the kids. The kids like him.�

 

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO| FC

Principal Richard Jean and supervising principal Father Brendan Dalton pose with five students at the entrance to McCarthy High School, from left: Olivia Richards, a senior whose parents are from Jamaica; Alison Nemia, a senior whose mom is Irish; Myrdjanah Mondesir, a senior from Haiti; Megan Sandora, a junior whose parents are Italian; and Kimberly Salazar, a junior whose parents are from Colombia.

�COOL�
�I think you�re cool,� said senior Joanna Theodorou when Jean asked her what she thought of him just before the opening-of-school Mass Aug. 31.

He spends most of his workdays walking up and down McCarthy�s hallways, stopping kids to chat, or to admonish them about tucking in their shirts and trimming their hair.

�The kids already started saying how mean I am,� Jean says with an easy laugh. �I believe in dealing with the little things. If you deal with the little things you won�t have to deal with the big things. If the kids know that I�m willing to suspend them because their hair is too long, they�ll wonder, �What will he do if I get in a fight here?��

His educational motto, he said, is simple: �Kids come first.� It�s not what the parents or teachers want but what students need that matters.

�I�m willing to make tough decisions,� he said, whether it involves school finances, student discipline or teacher competence. The same way he cannot allow a student to disrupt learning in a classroom, �I can�t allow a teacher to disrupt education for children.�

He is also a firm believer in Catholic education, saying that while he has the greatest respect for public school teachers and administrators, �I don�t see the mission there. It�s a mission we have to have and I find it in a Catholic school. It�s about God.�

In fact, his office is decorated not with sports memorabilia but with paintings of St. Francis of Assisi � whose prayer he recites every morning � and the Virgin Mary.

�I�ve been blessed,� he says of his appointment to McCarthy. �I�m first generation. For me this is incredible, now being part of the system to help other kids be able to do what I did.�

�I want to be that teacher that kids remember as having changed their life,� Jean added. �Because that�s what I had.�