Student, Teacher, Principal: 50 years in a central Queens high school

It was 1:51 p.m. at Newtown High School in Corona, Queens, and John Ficalora stared up at the clock on his office wall, the one hooked up to the school’s bell system. There was a problem: the bell was supposed to ring at 1:50 p.m.

Ficalora picked up the phone to call his assistant principal of operations, a man named Eric Levitan. Levitan didn’t answer but walked in a moment later, as if he sensed he was needed.

“It’s a minute late. Can you fix the bell?” Ficalora said. Levitan walked out, on a mission to adjust the school’s aging P.A. system.

Ficalora can practically sense when the bells are supposed to ring because he’s been at Newtown for over 50 years, as principal for the last 26. He has become the longest-serving current high school principal in Queens, and maybe in the whole city. “He loves the place. It’s his home,” says Levitan, who has worked with him for 22 years. “He’s here 6 days a week. He stayed until after 8 p.m. last night, and he never puts in for extra pay.”

When he arrived at Newtown as a freshman in 1964, it was the largest school in the city. Ficalora was one of over 5,000 students in an extremely overpopulated building. “You were just carried along by the stream in the hallways,” he remembered.

All four of Ficalora’s grandparents emigrated to the United States from Italy. Even with its current winter paleness, you can tell his skin leans towards olive. He’s a short man, with square features and sunken eyes that still twinkle. At 68 years old, but has few wrinkles and the vigor of a much younger man.

He was born in a Queens hospital that no longer exists to parents who worked designing furs, but Ficalora was not destined for the fur trade. In fourth grade, he had his first male teacher, for math. “I didn’t know men could do that. It opened up a possibility to me,” he said.

Following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, he enrolled in college after Newtown, majoring in mathematics and minoring in education at York College in Queens.

His brother Joseph attributes his doggedness to their upbringing. “It’s part and parcel of his personality,” he says. “John felt and has always felt a commitment to any obligation he had.”

He spent his first semester of student teaching at Benjamin Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens, but didn’t like it. When the chance came to spend the second semester at Newtown, he jumped at it. “I was placed in a classroom with a former teacher of mine who basically allowed me to teach the class,” he said fondly. When the school offered him a substitute teaching position, Ficalora continued on to graduate school at Queens College and St. John’s, taking classes at night while teaching at Newtown during the day. To this day he half-jokes that he hates leaving the borough.

Quickly rising through the ranks, he became the transportation coordinator then the program chairman, responsible for creating class schedules. That led to seven years heading the math department and, after three rounds of interviews, to becoming the principal in 1992.

The nicest room at Newtown is the principal’s office, it’s spacious and furnished with chairs and a conference table. Student artwork from different eras adorns the walls. One of the plants on his desk is a prayer plant, a Christmas present from Sebastian Trujillo, a Colombian junior. He met Ficalora during his freshman year and began stopping in to say good morning every day after that. Trujillo likes Ficalora because “He’s always takes time to talk to you. He will answer any questions you have about school or life.”

Ficalora spends most of the day in his office. On a recent Tuesday, he presided over meetings that went on for hours, starting with a debrief of a class observation he and several other administrators had just completed. It did not go well, and his voice echoed out into the foyer.

“If there are 29 kids in the class, how many kids are engaged? One kid!” Ficalora fumed. I don’t think he has any ideas who knows or doesn’t know. He didn’t monitor the class, he monitored one kid!”

it would be a mistake to see Ficalora’s passion as anger at the teacher in question according to Jennifer Schneider, a Newtown guidance counselor. “He challenges his staff. He asks people to rise to the occasion. He demands a lot of the staff, but he puts in the work himself,” she said. “There are a lot of principals who are really good at delegating to the point where they aren’t leading any more.”

Eduardo Medrano, the assistant principal for security, added that Ficalora has the authority to give this advice because he is “a walking library. He knows everything about about education.”

Beyond his book smarts, Ficalora also has an innate ability to give advice to young people. Maxwell Gordon, a 12th grader who dropped out of Newtown for two years before returning, enjoys the regular talks he has with Ficalora. “He’s wise. If I ask for advice I know I’ll be steered in the right direction,” Gordon said.

Hillary Villareal, a sophomore from The Philippines, concurs. She talked to Ficalora about college during a report card conferencing session. “He was really open to a lot of students. Really easy to talk to. Some people aren’t so open. He knows how to smile and make conversation good and relaxing,” she said.

Next of Ficalora’s agenda: a conference call with the city Department of Education official who would be conducting the school’s quality review based on class observations and interviews with teachers, students, and parents. “It has a great deal of meaning because it’s how the public knows us,” Ficalora said. The last quality review was conducted in 2015, and Newtown scored “proficient” or “well developed” in every category.

All parties take the review very seriously. During the call, Ficalora took copious notes in a ledger. He wrinkled his face a couple of times, notably when the official for some reason noted that “You have quite a few teachers working for you.” Most of the call was redundant, but Ficalora is used to educational bureaucracy.

After the call, another issue: Ficalora had noticed a problem with the cafeteria. With everyone waiting in one line, not all of the students can get good and eat during their lunch periods. Ficalora sounded fired up, and an administrator chuckled.

“You’re laughing — you’re not hungry!” Ficalora objected.

“I’m not laughing at the kids. I’m laughing at how they’re gonna react when you call the district.” she said. Ficalora cracked a smile.

Newtown was thrust into chaos in 2012, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to close 22 high schools for poor performance on statewide tests. The plan was to fire half the teachers, and all the administrators, then re-open a “new” school for the same students in the same building.

The courts eventually struck down the plan, but it was “horrific for the school,” Ficalora says. “A change in principalship traumatizes the whole school community. I was loyal to the staff, the students and the institution as a whole. I would have retired if I wasn’t placed back at Newtown.” He was the only one of the 22 principals Bloomberg targeted to return to the same school. Newtown’s graduation rate dropped to 59% in the years immediately after the crisis, but it has returned to 71% in the past two years.

Despite that turbulence, Ficalora says, he is “not trying to keep things comfortable for myself and the teachers. Education is all about change. Nothing remains the same. There’s very little in common between now and 26 years ago.”

For instance, Newtown has quintupled the number of students taking AP classes this year from 145 to 741. Ficalora has launched initiatives to improve attendance and Saturday classes to help students pass the Regents exams. After President Trump rescinded the DACA program, Ficalora brought in immigration experts to speak to students, many of whom stood crying in the hallways after they heard the news.

Walking through the crowded cafeteria, Ficalora has no compunction about going up to students he doesn’t know and striking up a conversation. It is obvious that he cherishes the time he still gets to spend with students even though it’s been decades since he was a full time teacher.

With a job he loves, something is still missing. “My biggest regret is that I didn’t spend more time on my personal life,” he says. “I wish I had a wife and a family, but that is what always got put off.” Ficalora still lives in the neighborhood, and spends every Sunday morning — his only morning off — at church.

Still, after 50 years, he has no plans to slow down. “Both my parents worked until they were 75,” he noted. He could have retired years ago, with a pension, but vows “I will continue working for years to come.”

His staff agrees. They can’t imagine Newtown without Ficalora or Ficalora without Newtown. “Without Newtown he would die,” Medrano says. Levitan adds, “He is Newtown.”

Cameron LeBlanc can be reached at cbl2130@columbia.edu.