\Homeroom\

Homeroom

Our Alums in Their Spaces

Nimet Eren, GED’09, GRD’20

Principal, Kensington Health Sciences Academy

Nimet Eren is the award-winning principal at Kensington Health Sciences Academy, a Philadelphia community school with career programs focused on the medical field. (Students can major in health-related technology, dental assisting, sports medicine, or global leadership.)

“The most important lesson I learned at GSE is that school should be the model democracy, the model community,” Eren said, thinking back on her time at Penn GSE, where she earned her master’s in urban education and doctorate in educational leadership. “I think here at Kensington Health, we try very hard to develop a school that puts its constituents first, gives our students a voice, and teaches them that they have the ability to shape the community they live in and the world we hope to achieve one day.”

Located in North Philadelphia’s East Kensington neighborhood, the school is housed in a small, 25-year-old building. Eren often shares her office with anyone who needs the space—from teachers holding meetings to students eating lunch. “Even though I have a lot of my things here, this is everybody’s space,” she said.

The office’s closet is filled with books and props from her years as a high school English teacher at nearby Olney High School—including the pool noodles her students used to act out Shakespearean sword fights. The minifridge is stocked with red cans of Coke. And the shelves are full of photos and mementos of her students and community. She shared a few with us.

1 ) Dental mold “We have a dental program here at Kensington Health, and it’s taken some time to find the right dental teacher. Last year, the stars aligned, and we have the most incredible dental teacher, and she’s doing the most innovative things in our dental lab, including having the students make molds of their teeth and learn to give examinations. . . . These are not my teeth, but our dental teacher just started a really cool fundraiser where the kids make molds of teeth and create whitening kits for them, so this is real-world stuff that is happening at the school.”

a CD disc case with a cover that reads "Spotlight on Phillies PA Announcer Dan Baker" is held in a hand

Photo credit: HKB Photo for Penn GSE

2 ) Phillies announcer DVD “This is really special to me because, while I miss having my own classroom of students every day, I do have my own group of students because I [supervise] the students who do announcements. We call it Broadcasting Club. The kids love to do the announcements and share all the school news. My second year as principal, the Phillies announcer, Dan Baker, came and did our announcements for us. I recorded it. It was awesome to hear his voice over the loudspeaker.”

3 ) Letter on board “This is a letter from Mayor Nutter from April 2008. My first year of teaching, my students wrote letters to Mayor Nutter condemning gun violence and calling for action, and he wrote back. I made copies for all my students.”
a card with a small painting of an Italian city in the center is held in hand

Photo credit: HKB Photo for Penn GSE

4 ) Small Italy painting “This was a gift from two of our teachers who took a group of students to Florence, Italy, as part of a sister-city exchange program through the Mayor’s Office of Education. Our students—sophomores—went to Italy and students from Italy came to Kensington.”

5 ) “This Coke bottle [with my name on it] was a gift from our previous community school coordinator. The one thing people know about me is, usually around 1 p.m., I have a Coca-Cola, and it’s not diet—straight sugar. It pushes me through to the end of the day. It’s a bit of a running joke. It’s so unhealthy, but the real Coke, you can’t beat it.”

6 ) Ticket “The most recent addition to my wall is this ticket, because this was for Kensington Health Sciences’ first dance at school. We had a winter wonderland dance in December. We were going to have one last year, but COVID-19 [Omicron] happened. So, it was super exciting to have one. The kids were so excited to be at their school, dressed up, at night. In fact, they were so excited that we just had a Valentine’s Day dance. We are a dancing school now.”

a framed handwritten poster of the Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken"

Photo credit: HKB Photo for Penn GSE

(On opposing wall) Framed poem “This [handwritten poster of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’] was my grandfather’s. It used to hang in my classroom. I used to always teach this poem my first month with the kids. It’s a great poem to always refer back to when we have to make choices in the classroom. I think ‘The Road Not Taken’ is very symbolic of life and the choices you could make versus the choices everybody is making. I was very proud to be at Olney for eight years, and I hope to be at Kensington Health even longer. And in many ways, that’s the road not taken, because I like to stay and make roots.”

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