Teacher Spotlight: Rashad Randolph

This year, Rashad Randolph started working at Fieldston as the Assistant Principal of Student Life. He has taught and held leadership roles at many other schools around New York and in other states as well. Randolph has been warmly welcomed into the Fieldston community and is eager to get to know everyone here. 

Growing up in the Bronx, Randolph went to a small private school, and at age thirteen, he began attending a boarding school. He was never a fan of the Yankees until he moved into a house close to Yankee Stadium. His Yankee fandom was also sparked by his cousin, who played for the team. If you visit Randolph’s office today, you will see numerous posters of Yankee players hanging on the walls. Randolph no longer lives near Yankee Stadium, though he is still a resident of the Bronx. Before becoming a teacher, he lived in seven other states. He also spent one year in Spain but had to come home to New York when his mother began to battle cancer. “I wanted to be closer to my family,” Randolph says. His mother was the biggest role model in his life. Randolph looked up to her because of her strong work ethic and personable nature. Throughout his childhood, he never thought that he would end up being a teacher or administrator. In fact, Randolph wanted to work in public relations. It was not until later in his life that Randolph’s former teacher found him and asked him to teach at his former high school. This was the beginning of his career as an educator.

Randolph embarked on his journey in education by teaching summer school. He was a teacher at the summer school for one year and an administrator for another year. Though Randolph’s intense passion for teaching did not exist at this time, he began to develop powerful connections with his students at this school. Before joining the Fieldston community, Randolph worked at many other schools, one of which was Packer, where he worked for eleven years. “Being an educator and seeing so many students graduate and go off to do great things was one of my greatest achievements,” Randolph says. He prides himself on being a person of his word and for standing up for what is right. As a black male and someone who is part of a minority, Randolph feels the need to stand up for others because he knows that he needs others to stand up for him.

Randolph truly enjoys building strong bonds with his students. “Students are all the same in the fact that they always want you to be honest and keep it real with them,” Randolph says. He continued to explain that students from any school will always want you to be one-hundred percent truthful with them. Randolph believes that earning a student’s trust is the key to being a loved and effective teacher. He highly values a trust-filled bond with his students. “It’s hard to earn a teenager’s trust but once you gain it, it’s like gold. But if you lose it, it is much harder, not impossible, but much much harder to gain it again.” 

In one word, Randolph chose to describe Fieldston as eclectic, which means to derive ideas from a broad and diverse range of sources. At Fieldston, there is such a large group of students and faculty who are willing to discuss their ideas about countless topics, and meaningful information is gathered from these discussions. Randolph chose to work at Fieldston because he believes in its mission. He also likes how Fieldston attempts to prepare students for the outside world. Randolph is glad that the work he does at Fieldston challenges him in different ways than his prior jobs.

Randolph loves it when students stop by his office or even just wave to him from outside as they make their way to class. He truly wishes that students would make this small, simple gesture more often. Despite the lack of friendly waves through his office window, Mr. Randolph believes that his welcome into the Fieldston community was wonderful. “People were always offering to give me help,” Randolph says. “Mr. Furlonge and the health and wellness team have been especially helpful to me during these past few months.” Randolph knows that it always takes him a couple of years before feeling completely comfortable working at a school. Since he has held many leadership roles in other schools before, he knows that he must be patient until he feels completely settled. In the future, Randolph hopes to see changes to the layout of the campus to accommodate people with injuries or physical disabilities. Currently, it is very hard to manage moving around Fieldston if you have a physical restriction. 

Mr. Randolph is excited to watch the Fieldston School learn and grow. He is proud to be a part of such an immersive and welcoming community.