Frank Mickens

Dr. Frank Mickens (June 22, 1946 – July 9, 2009), was a nationally recognized New York City educator as principal of Boys and Girls High School at 1700 Fulton Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, one of America's toughest areas. The seventeenth largest high school in the United States, Boys and Girls High School has a student population of over four thousand students. Boys and Girls High School was built in the 1970s as a model 'education option' school, and Mickens successfully embraced this initiative as an administrator in the New York City Department of Education. His cigar-chomping tough no-nonsense 'take charge' clawhammer approach earned Mickens 'tough love' comparisons to Joe Louis Clark and the controversial nickname 'The Chancellor of Fulton Street'.

Mickens mother was a teacher. He was a graduate of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. He earned a B.A. in History from SUNY Potsdam, and a Master's degree New York University. In 1968 at 22, he began teaching at Boys High School, and served as boys baseball and basketball coach 1969-1979, leading the Kangaroos to the 1979 PSAL boys basketball championship, and also served as academic dean of students. He completed postgraduate work at Columbia University, and later attended the Principal's Center at Harvard University. In 1982, he became principal of a Junior High School 324 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and later was principal of Martin Luther King High School (New York) in Manhattan. In 1980, he became men's basketball coach at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

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