On July 1, Edward M. Johnson Jr. became the first African-American principal of Brentwood High School.
He was named unanimously by the Brentwood School District Board of Education to replace retiring Principal Don Rugraff at a board meeting in April. Rugraff stepped down June 30 after serving the district for five years.
“Dr. Johnson is the right choice as the new principal,” said David Faulkner, superintendent of the Brentwood School District. “He has worked in the district for eight years and understands and values our mission to serve every student.”
In 2012, according to data from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, Brentwood High School was two-thirds (66 percent) white and one-third minority, with 27 percent black students, 2 percent Hispanic and 1.2 percent Asian.
The school had 244 students, and 32.9 percent were on free or reduced lunches, an indicator of poverty.
Johnson started out on his educational career path as a business major. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Management at Missouri Baptist University.
Believing his life’s purpose to serve people was not being fulfilled, he turned his back on business and spent two years as a substitute teacher with the St. Louis Public School District.
“At that time, a couple of people were saying I had a major influence on kids and that I needed to consider going to school to get myself
certified,” he said.
He heeded their advice and re-enrolled at Missouri Baptist, where he became certified in physical and driver’s education. He then landed a job at Ladue Horton Watkins High School where he taught PE and Driver’s Ed and was a football and basketball coach.
“People all across St. Louis thought I would coach forever,” he said. “But, I had the desire to work even closer with kids on the academic side.”
So he went back to school again, this time earning master’s and doctorate degrees in Education Leadership from Lindenwood University and Maryville University, respectively.
After a nine-year tenure with the Ladue School District, he was hired into the Brentwood School District. During his first year he served dually as assistant vice principal at Brentwood Middle School and Brentwood High School. Subsequently the athletic director position was merged with the assistant vice principal position at the high school, and that became his full-time job.
“As far as I know, it’s the first time they had created a position with those two duties combined,” he said.
Before officially starting as a newly promoted principal, Johnson assisted in filling several key positions, including his former position. At the beginning of June, the school board announced that Stephen Ayotte would assume that role. Ayotte previously served as director of secondary education and assistant principal for Confluence Charter Schools in St. Louis.
“I am very excited about recruiting Stephen to our team,” Johnson said of Ayotte. “He brings a wealth of experience and a great energy to a very challenging position.”
Next, he plans to meet with his administrative staff to discuss formulating a vision for how to move the school forward. His priority is ensuring that students obtain a high-quality education rooted in individualized instruction that incorporates the new Common Core State Standards. He said that student success is not entirely based on content knowledge gleaned from a classroom; students also must learn survival skills such as resilience and self-assessment.
Having broken a racial barrier, he said, is important only in terms what good he can do in his new position. “I can’t say that my focus was to become the first,” Johnson said of his promotion, “as much as it was to make a positive impact on society.”
