Incoming Northport High School principal Robert Dennis reintroduces himself to the community

Incoming Northport High School principal Robert Dennis reintroduced himself to the community last week via two in-person, community-wide public forums, called “coffee talks,” at which members of the community could comment, question, or just chat about issues within the Northport-East Northport School District.

Mr. Dennis was appointed to his new position by the board of education in late July, replacing former high school principal Daniel Danbusky. After nine years of service to Northport High School – three as assistant principal, six as principal – Mr. Danbusky left the Northport-East Northport school district at the culmination of the 2020-2021 school year, taking a position as principal at Cold Spring Harbor Jr./Sr. High School.

A 2004 Northport High School graduate, Mr. Dennis received his bachelor’s degree from Providence College in secondary education and his master’s from Stony Brook University. Fresh out of college, he returned to Northport High School, where, in addition to teaching both Italian and Spanish, he held the positions of National Honor Society advisor, IB coordinator, and Class of 2013 advisor.

In 2014, Mr. Dennis became assistant principal and Chairperson of ESL and World Language for the Plainview-Old Bethpage School District. Most recently, he has been the principal of North Shore Middle School in Glen Head for five years.

Mr. Dennis opened the two in-person “coffee talks,” held at Northport High School, by giving a run-down of his biography, with heavy consideration given to his time as principal at North Shore Middle School. “I am very proud to say that my middle school was one of five on Long Island to be open all day, every day for 620 students and 100 staff members,” he said. Mr. Dennis went on to explain that, at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year, 40 students were fully remote; as the days progressed, North Shore ended their educational year with 27 of those students back in class, and 13 students fully remote.

Shifting to the present, Mr. Dennis began to outline the jagged road ahead of Northport High School and its students. “[Seniors] are the only students in this building who have ever known a full, normal year. They were ninth graders, and they had a full year. Not ever since then has any grade level in this building known what this building is about.”

Faced with this dilemma – the fact that the usual routines and institutions of Northport High School are soon to leave the building forever with the Class of 2022 – Mr. Dennis said he wishes to focus on three points of rehabilitation: “restoring the traditions that are so important to students in this building, restoring focus on academics, and restoring focus on student wellness and health.”

To achieve this anything-but-meager goal, Mr. Dennis laid out a number of concrete ideas to restore the high school he once knew back to its original prominence.

The first of such ideas is a practice Mr. Dennis implemented during his inaugural month as North Shore Middle School principal: to meet with every individual faculty member (teachers, counselors, aides, custodial and kitchen staff, etc.) for at least 15 minutes each. Mr. Dennis is the first to acknowledge this will be no easy task, as Northport High School is roughly double the size of North Shore Middle. “I will talk to them about what priorities they have, what priorities they believe the school has; what are you proud of as a faculty member, what areas of growth do you believe we have,” he said.

Another tradition Mr. Dennis plans to take with him from his time at North Shore is that of a weekly parent letter. Every Friday at 4pm, Mr. Dennis hopes to send out a weekly parent informational email. Citing the need for simplicity in the district’s information flow, Mr. Dennis aims to send only one email out to parents each week.

Mr. Dennis said that one of the reasons he wanted the position of principal at Northport High School is due to the extensive clubs and activities offered, specifically those Mr. Dennis deems “philanthropic and service-minded activities.” An example of such a club is Students for 60,000, an organization made up of service-oriented high school students eager to fight the crisis of poverty and homelessness abroad and at home. (Its name refers to the then 60,000 homeless men and women living in New York City at the founding of the organization in 1987).

To promote such organizations, Mr. Dennis wishes to plan a Club Fair, by which the various associations and extracurricular activities offered at Northport High School can be advertised in a communal setting, increasing awareness and participation in these high school experiences.

Lastly, Mr. Dennis acknowledged the 2020-2021 school year as being lost on many rising sophomores. Many of these then-freshmen were not in the building for more than two days a week, if even physically present at all. Social interaction was severely crippled, he said, with the natural crossover of the Northport and East Northport Middle Schools never taking place. Rising sophomores are only aware of those they had gone to middle school with – and not many other students.

To mediate this issue, Mr. Dennis will be instituting a sophomore “re-welcoming” orientation, in addition to the traditional freshman orientation, a practice rising sophomores also missed last year. As Mr. Dennis explained, this will aid with the rising sophomores’ transition back to the building, a crucial entry point into what is hoped to be a relatively smooth educational year.

“The most important number in my life is 1716,” Mr. Dennis said in his closing remarks. “The number of people in this building [Northport High School] is 1713. The reason for those extra three are my daughters: a kindergartener, preschooler, and another daughter who is yet to be born. It is important to me that you know that the people in this building come to work every day with that idea of love in mind. I want you to trust that when you drop your kids off, or when they drive themselves to school, the people in this building care for your kids.”