Charlotte Feinberg (286)

With AP Snyder’s recent departure from Central, a new face and accent has entered the school: Dr. Francis-Maurer. DFM, as his students call him, shares insights about navigating Philadelphia along with his new position as AP. Dr. Francis-Maurer participated in Britain’s version of the organization Teach for America: Teach First. After he met his husband and married him in America he had to redo the process of being a licensed educator. “My qualifications in England, like essentially a license to be an administrator, didn’t transfer. So I had to do a program to get an admin license,” he said. Although Dr. Francis-Maurer taught in Boston and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, he still always loved Philly, saying,“My heart was always in Philly, I was always crossing the bridge and paying the six dollars to come back and I was coming home to Philly.” He was able to get involved with Central as AP Smith and AP Myrick were also in his program in the city.

Dr. Francis-Maurer received his doctorate in England after studying Mathematics. He explained, “We found a gap where we wanted to interview boys to work out how boys use phones.” When asked how this research would be implemented, Dr. Francis-Maurer shared, “The research showed the power of listening to student voices.” He is able to use this knowledge at Central as one of his main focuses is centered around listening to student voices.

As Dr. Francis-Maurer spent around fifteen years being an educator in England, he picked up on many differences between English and American schools. He shared, “The idea of course selection is very different here because you have to [ask] ‘when do I take Chemistry, which Chemistry do I take?’” When asked about testing, Dr. Francis-Maurer shared the differences: “In England you don’t really have a GPA. There are two three-hour tests at the end of every year.” Dr. Francis-Maurer went on to share how ‘senioritis’ is foreign to him, as in England, you need to score well on your end of year test to get into university. 

 At the beginning of every school year, schedules get shifted and students frantically try to switch out or into certain classes. Dr. Francis-Maurer now oversees all of these adjustments. He has many new ideas on how to better this system for next year, saying, “I’d like to hear from teachers about what their recommendation is but on a really light level.” He would like these conversations to happen at the end of the school year to better prepare the students for next year. “We’ll have a plan where you know the end of the year process looks different to enable the start of the year to feel different,” he explained. 

Although we all will miss AP Snyder, we are so excited to have Dr. Francis-Maurer join our team of APs this year. He has so much prior knowledge and excitement to bring to us at Central!