The search for the Stapleton High School principal began locally, but soon became a global search attempting to find the greatest principal ever, who would be the only principal qualified for the Stapleton job. Late last March, the committee decided to go global with its search efforts, and invited 51 candidates to Stapleton from around the globe. Most were US candidates, but there was one from India, and others from Germany, Finland, two candidates from Japan, and one from England. In the end, like in world wars, the United States prevailed.
The search committee decided to go with New Yorker, Avi Tropper. Tropper has experience in founding high schools focused on innovative academic and student support programs. For more on Tropper’s qualifications and background, read this month’s Front Porch. Tropper acknowledges that New York City and Stapleton in Denver both present their own challenges. “In New York, for many of the public schools, we have to work to get parents involved,” says Tropper. “In Stapleton, I can already see that one of my main challenges will to get parents a little less involved. So, just opposite sides of the same coin.”
Tropper says he will do his best to be available to people in the community, but please limit phone calls, emails, and texts to once a day. “I want to get back to everyone, and certainly respect people’s opinions,” said Tropper. “But our team will need a little space to get things going, and people will need to have a little faith in us.” Tropper has yet to confess to being a Yankees fan, which he may not do until everything is going in the right direction.
In addition to Tropper’s work in New York City’s Department of Education, Tropper has been a Dean of Students, a teacher, and an Assistant Principal. Other qualifications for Tropper include:
- Graduated summa cum laude from Princeton
- Rhodes Scholar
- Knows pi 20 decimals out
- Integral in orchestrating Treaty of Versailles
- Split atom, then convinced the two sides to get back together
- Bench presses 225 32 times
- Can dunk a basketball
- Helped improve Chuck Norris’s drop kick
- The most interesting man in the world asks him what he has been up to
- Once won an argument with his wife