He's got a sharp eye and a 24/7 approach

Money for such special events is raised in part by Mickens through public speaking and soliciting from corporate donors. "A lot of what I do is not in the job description for a principal," he says.

That extends to the rules that govern his school. He maintains a tough dress code: no expensive jackets or sneakers, no short skirts, no earrings larger than a quarter. He refuses to open the school door to those students who will not conform. He also requires boys to wear ties twice a week - to practice, he tells them, for white-collar jobs ahead.

He dishes out severe doses of detention and suspension. And although he does maintain a number of remedial and probationary programs, if students continue to misbehave he will eventually remove them from his school - an option some complain violates civil rights.

But to Mickens, it seems simple. "I'm not going to have a group of 15-year-olds running my school," he says.

Although he looms larger than life at school, Mickens insists that in truth, he's a shy and private man. The persona he's created at school is simply "what the circumstances required."

Mickens is in every sense a product of the New York City school system. He attended and graduated from nearby Brooklyn schools. He worked for years at Boys and Girls as a history teacher and basketball coach, taking the team to two citywide championships. He was assistant principal at a Queens middle school, where he credits a disciplined and hard-working principal with helping to shape his own work habits.

Before returning to Boys and Girls, he served as principal of a troubled Brooklyn middle school where he was also instrumental in engineering a turnaround.

But long involvement with the New York system has not made Mickens hesitant to buck its rules.

When it comes to hiring teachers, Mickens makes it clear that he doesn't like the way the Board of Education does business and doesn't hesitate to turn down candidates they send him. "They'll try to force you to take any old body," he says. "I have a right to do better."

Mickens has been permitted such insubordination, say some, because success is hard to argue with. "The Board of Education realizes he's right," says Tom Messineo, an English teacher at Boys and Girls for 33 years. "You may not always agree with him, but you see what's he done for the school."

Some observers worry about sustaining this style of leadership. Mickens, whose feet and legs trouble him these days, is candid about the fact that he'd like to leave his job within another year or two.

He's been equally frank about his desire to work with the Board of Education as a trainer of principals, but as yet there's been no offer. Some suspect he may be too much of a maverick.

The trouble with a principal like Mickens, says Gary Natriello, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, is that his style is almost impossible to replicate. "Sometimes these extraordinary individuals come along," he says. But such cases, he adds, are "one in a hundred."

Mickens himself agrees that it would be hard for another to operate as he does. When it comes to urban education, he explains, "Very few people have my sense of urgency."

Send e-mail comments to marjorie@csmonitor.com.

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