One principal had to get creative to motivate students to attend school

Throughout her tenure at PS/IS 184 Newport, Principal Lisa Caldwell Linder brought theater, band, and community services to her school as a way to strengthen school attendance and make her community of Brownsville, Brooklyn stronger. Principal Linder coined the phrase "I am not my zip code," as a way of empowering her students to be proud of their identities, regardless of their zip code's perennially high crime rates.