New CCS Principal, STEM Expert,
To Guide Science Wing Upgrade
![In a video, CCS Middle/High School's new principal Donna Lucy, left, discusses the concepts behind the innovative Evolutions High School in Providence that she pioneers before coming here.](https://www.allotsego.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/donna-lucy-video-copy.jpg)
By JIM KEVLIN • from this week’s Freeman’s Journal
COOPERSTOWN – So far, Donna Lucy is particularly impressed by the emotional “toolkit” Cooperstown Central School students bring with them from elementary school.
Pupils moving into CCS’ middle and high school – she became principal of both on Aug. 1 – have self-confidence, a sense of trust that they will be supported, and the ability to process the setbacks, challenges and personality clashes of everyday life.
With many of the students Lucy has interacted with over the past 14 years, that wasn’t usually the case.
Beginning at Boys & Girls High School in New York City’s challenged Bedford-Stuyvesant section – Principal Frank Mickens, who doubled the graduation rate from 24 percent to 48 percent during his tenure, was soon her mentor – she learned she needed to establish a rapport with often distrustful students before she could help them…