Shael Polakow-Suransky
| Shael Polakow-Suransky | |
|---|---|
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| 8th President of Bank Street College of Education | |
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Assumed office July 1, 2014 |
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| Preceded by | Elizabeth Dickey |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 10, 1972 South Africa |
| Residence | New York City, New York |
| Alma mater | Brown University, Bank Street College of Education |
Shael Polakow-Suransky (born January 10, 1972) is the president of the Bank Street College of Education. Previously he was the New York City Department of Education Chief Academic Officer and Senior Deputy Chancellor.
Polakow-Suransky was born in South Africa, where his parents, Valerie Polakow and Leonard Suransky, who are both Jewish, were anti-apartheid activists. In 1973, the family immigrated to Michigan. Shael attended Ann Arbor's alternative Community High School. In high school, Shael Polakow-Suransky paired his fellow students with younger children in a peer-education program that promoted conversations about tolerance; the program spread throughout his school district. He spent his senior year conducting an independent study in Durban, South Africa, at the height of the anti-Apartheid movement. He studied education and urban studies at Brown University.
Polakow-Suransky earned a master's degree in educational leadership from Bank Street College of Education and graduated from the Broad Superintendents Academy in 2008.
In 1994, Polakow-Suransky began teaching math and social studies at Crossroads Middle School in Harlem. After three years, he became the founding math teacher and eventually assistant principal at Bread and Roses Integrated Arts High School, which combined foci on arts and social justice in its curriculum.
Inspired by New York City’s small schools movement and aware of the added struggles that English language learners face, Polakow-Suransky founded a new, small school, Bronx International High School, in 2001. In order to be admitted to the school, students had to fail the City's English language assessment and had to be recent immigrants to the United States. The school was specifically designed to support language development and literacy for a population of students historically neglected by New York's large comprehensive high schools. He also drew inspiration from educators who worked with similar student populations; in a 2001 book review of Vito Perrone’s Teacher with a Heart: Reflections on Leonard Covello and Community, Polakow-Suransky writes that “the task of rebuilding school communities that can support students and one day extend beyond into the community is formidable” but that he was driven by “a sense of possibility.”
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