On March 19, 2024, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved the appointment of Dr. Shawaan T. Robinson as principal at Paint Branch High School. Dr. Robinson, who’s currently the principal at Briggs Chaney Middle School, takes over for acting principal, Mrs. Krawczel, who was named principal at Wheaton High School.

Dr. Robinson has been an educator for thirty years and worked in administration for twelve of those years. During this time, she has served in various roles including assistant school administrator and assistant principal at Westland Middle School, assistant principal at Banneker Middle School, assistant principal at Tilden Middle School, and principal intern at Gaithersburg Middle School.
She has served in her current position as principal at Briggs Chaney for the past four years. Dr. Robinson has also had other educational roles including elementary teacher and counselor, middle school counselor, and pupil personnel worker.

In her opinion, one of her biggest challenges is transitioning from being a principal at a middle school to a principal at a large high school. Dr. Robinson plans on using the skills cultivated in the roles that she has had in the past to help smooth the transition. She feels that with so many students, building relationships with them will be challenging, but, as a self-proclaimed “relational leader,” this is especially important to her.

“I would describe myself as a relational leader who is student-centered,” she notes. “I believe that establishing relationships with students, staff, and families is vital to ensuring the best educational outcomes for students.”

As someone who places a great deal of value on building relationships and taking everyone in the building into account, Dr. Robinson emphasizes that it will be important to acknowledge students, teachers, and staff voices, ensuring that PB will be reflective of our whole community. Elevating the value of stakeholder voices is something she already intends to take action on with plans to “rewrite our vision and mission statements to ensure that it is reflective and inclusive of the entire PBHS community.”

Dr. Robinson is a member of the community herself and has seen the issues PB faces. When taking time to acknowledge them, she says, “I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge what PB has been grappling with, particularly the changes in leadership and student behavioral incidents that simply cannot define the school.”

Dr. Robinson has visited PB several times since her appointment by the board, and says that these visits have given her the “opportunity to meet students” and see PB and “what it looks like day-to-day.”
In the coming weeks, she plans to spend more time at PB and “gather feedback from students, staff, and families about what they see as priorities for the coming school year and determine if there are opportunities to rebrand who we are as a PBHS community,” says Dr. Robinson. “Rebranding is really about establishing ways to elevate the excellence at PB.”