Meet Principal Felicia Phillips

Kennedy High seniors and yearbook students, Rasheed Leggett and Michelle Yanez, recently interviewed our new principal, Felicia Phillips, about how she went from Kennedy High student to Kennedy High principal. Here’s what she had to say:

Q: What Year Did you graduate?
A: I graduated in 1984 so I’ll be celebrating my 35th class reunion next fall!

Q: Can you describe what Kennedy was like when you were here?
A: Oh wow. Kennedy was an amazing place. We (Kennedy) had something called Modular Scheduling in which students didn’t have every class every day. It’s not quite the same schedule we have today. The school itself was different.  In the 500 building, we had culinary arts classes, and home economics. In the 600 building, we had woodshop, auto shop, and welding. Kennedy was just a really vibrant and diverse place. The demographics were just a little different than now because Kennedy used to be predominantly African American. We had students from all over coming to Kennedy. Kennedy was a great school that had wonderful teachers to push us to do great things and I loved coming here every day!

Q: Did it ever cross your mind as a student at  Kennedy that you’d someday be principal?
A: No way! When I left here (Kennedy) my goal was to become an engineer thanks to a wonderful teacher named Mrs. Irving. She introduced me to engineering and that’s what I thought I was going to do for the rest of my career. I didn’t know I was going to be a teacher, much less a principal, much less at Kennedy! I had no idea.

Q: What made you want to become a principal?
A: Good question! I graduated from college and got a job in Atlanta. I worked in corporate America but I always had an interest in helping people. The company I worked for would always go to an elementary school and we would help kids learn how to read, and I would do various activities helping children. When I participated in all of these activities, it reminded me of my senior year at Kennedy when I would volunteer to help kids at King Elementary. Over time as I got older and kept helping youth, I decided to leave my job that made a lot of money, and took a 40 percent pay cut to learn how to become a teacher. I felt like helping build the next generation of leaders and learners was very important.

READ FULL INTERVIEW