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Overcast New Shaw Avenue principal brings love of literacy
The second time was the charm for Johane Ligonde. After applying for a open principal position in District 30 a few years ago, this time she got the job.
Ligonde is the new principal of Shaw Avenue School, the district’s largest elementary school with about 700 students. A few years ago, after finishing her master’s degree, she had applied for the opening at nearby Clear Stream Avenue School. In fact, this year Ligonde’s building will house Clear Stream’s kindergarten students.
The native of Haiti moved to Brooklyn when she was 9 years old. She graduated from Midwood High School in three years. Ligonde admits she didn’t really like high school, where she felt like a number, so that pushes her to create a more personal school atmosphere as an administrator.
Ligonde then attended SUNY Albany where she majored in English Literature and French, also graduating in three years. She then was accepted into Albany’s master’s program to be a teacher, but after a year she was offered a scholarship to attend Union College in Schenectady. That was a great opportunity, she said, because she was able to get a full year of practical internship experience in the classroom.
She taught in South Carolina and Atlanta before moving back to New York to teach at FDNY High School, part of the city’s move to create small high schools. She was the lead teacher there and also taught in Westbury Middle School for a year.
Her first experience as a principal came in Anguilla, a small island in the Caribbean. It was a small, privately funded international school and Ligonde said there often wasn’t enough money to pay the teachers — the most difficult part of her job. In addition to serving as principal there, she taught first and second grade, and plunged toilets if she needed to. “I did everything,” Ligonde said. “I took care of my kids.”
After a year there, she came back to the states and got a job in the Lawrence School District as the director of English and social studies. She supervised 49 faculty members and helped to implement a new reading and writing program. Her responsibilities included planning workshops for teachers, and doing classroom observations.
