GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (GRPS) – MLK Leadership Academy Principal Harvey Crawley has spent decades in education, but that wasn’t initially his plan.
“I was doing something completely different,” Crawley recalled. He was working third shift at a youth home in Detroit when he started to realize it might be time for a change. “It started with one kid, ‘Hey, I need some help with homework before the bus comes.’ And then it was another kid and it was a third and fourth kid. That was the big seed.”
Crawley started off as a teacher in Kalamazoo and Battle Creek before coming to Grand Rapids Public Schools.
“It's different every day - it's really different every hour,” he said. “Knowing that the time that you're here, if it's just one staff and one student, that you make an impact on that particular day, then you've done your job.”
Crawley believes it is important to be approachable and spend time with scholars.
“I try to be out as much as possible,” he said. “We have to be the example, particularly for the younger ones, the best way to do that is to be out there, engage with them. Just as much as I'm teaching them, they're teaching me. There's a there's a pride in that.”
