The nation’s top secondary principals have a message: School leaders can make a big difference in the success of their teachers and students.
The National Association of Secondary School Principals announced two winners for the 2025-26 National Principal of the Year award on July 9 at its annual conference in Seattle.
Tony Cattani, the principal of Lenape High School in Medford, N.J., won in the high school category, while Damon Lewis, the principal of Ponus Ridge STEAM Academy in Norwalk, Conn., won the top honors for his work as a middle school principal.
The principals were selected from a group of six finalists for their focus on improving school culture and climate, battling absenteeism, and finding effective ways to help teachers grow in their jobs.
Education Week spoke to both principals shortly after their win. These interviews have been edited for length and clarity.
Tony Cattani is recognized for his work with peer observations for teachers
You’ve been principal at Lenape for the last 18 years. What does this win mean for you?
Cattani: I couldn’t keep it together when I won. I FaceTimed my wife, my parents, and my kids. I was super emotional.
It was three in the morning by the time all the calls wrapped up. Some of the first texts I had were from parents and a bunch of my staff, my assistant superintendent, and other principals from our district. They were so proud, it made everything worthwhile.
You have a long-running peer observation system between teachers in your school. How did that start?
When I was first an administrator, I thought I was a pretty good teacher, too. But when I saw other teachers at my school teach, I realized ... I wasn’t that good. I thought, how do I get those [good] examples to the rest of my teachers so they can see it?
It also became quite obvious to me that all of our students weren’t having the best experience in every one of our classes. We needed to provide that opportunity for our kids because one teacher can make such a difference.
I wanted to make all of our teachers more like our best teachers—that was really my goal.
I asked our teachers quite bluntly in a faculty meeting, when I introduced peer observations: “If you don’t think you can benefit from everybody that’s in this room, then we’re not those constant learners we talk about.” I asked: “Would you be your child’s teacher?”
The teachers took it to heart and felt they needed to be better. It was a time for them to self-reflect.
How did you create the peer observation system?
I asked my teachers what their strengths were. Is it how you promote a growth mindset in the classroom? Is it how you check for understanding? Is your strength that you’re a dynamic lesson designer? Or are you really good with classroom management, with routines and expectations?
I wanted [them] to identify these strengths in themselves. Once they did, we put them into a Google document, and I put that into a website, where teachers were able to go into a spreadsheet and find teachers who indicated what their strength was, and what classes they’d be teaching that week.
I did a pilot program first with 30 of my teachers, and they loved it. They started to say that they got to meet new teachers. They got to see how teachers were trying different strategies that they had never thought of. They also said they got to see kids react to different environments, … how they reacted in an English class versus how they act in a history class, or how they responded to positive reinforcement. It was powerful, and we started to create a more collegial environment in school.
Teachers in high school don’t share a ton. The job is really isolating. You can stay in your room all day, teach your kids, and think you’re making a pretty good impact. But a lot of kids aren’t giving you a lot of information back. They’re not giving you a lot of feedback. This [effort] helped the teachers feel more valued and seen as professionals by their peers.
It also helped us personalize our professional development, which was key for me. I wanted my teachers to learn what they wanted to learn, not what I wanted them to learn.
How do teachers schedule peer observations during a busy school day?
One, we have a pretty flexible schedule with six classes. Teachers have taken the initiative to visit the website and figure out who they want to observe. For instance, we may have 35 teachers signed up to demonstrate how they check for understanding.
They can email the teacher and ask to observe. The best part, too, is that it’s interdisciplinary. You’re going from a history teacher to a science teacher to an English teacher to a math teacher. They’re seeing different things from different classes.
We also start this practice early with new hires. From 2018 ‘til now, everybody that’s been hired has been asked in the interview, “Have you ever done peer observations? Will you do peer observations?”
There is an expectation from the start that they will participate in peer observations and also lead collegiate cafes, where they can demonstrate a strength they have to their peers.
What role does a principal play in motivating new innovations, especially when it comes to professional development?
I wouldn’t downplay the role of the principal. The first day when I rolled out [peer observations] to everybody, I had another principal in my faculty meeting that day, and I told teachers that he’s here to observe me, and I’m going to his faculty meeting next week. I’m not going to just tell them to do something.
It started with faculty meetings, and then I started contacting principals to go visit to see some of their best practices. All along, I was updating my staff at different times and meetings about what I’m doing. I wasn’t bragging to them. I was letting them know that I’m doing the same things. If I can model that and share the importance of peer observations, it goes a long way.
Damon Lewis is recognized for his efforts to engage students and parents
You switched your college major from business to education. Why?
Lewis: I switched my major because once I got to college, my mother would write me letters and send me news articles about some of my friends that I grew up with from school, and they were getting arrested. Some had gotten killed.
I thought to myself: How selfish is it of me to continue this business route when there’s people that I graduated from school with and people that look like me and people from my community that weren’t doing well?
Right then and there, I thought education was the best way to give back to the community and try to work with people and work with families to help save some lives.
What was it like to be named the principal of the year?
I was in the ballroom with the 3 finalists, and no one knew who was going to win it. So all three of us are sitting there at the table, and they read our bios, and then they say all three of us are great leaders, and then they say, “our ‘25-'26 middle school principal of the year is Damon Lewis.”
I prayed, cried, hugged my wife, and went up and accepted my award. It’s really humbling because I just never imagined myself in this role. I didn’t go into this work to be the best principal. That was not on my bucket list, but it was always on my bucket list to do the best job I could for the community that I serve. This just came as a product of that work.
Now that you have that title, what do you hope to do with it?
I hope to continue to impact my community in Norwalk, Conn., to scale what I’m doing in Norwalk on a state level and then to a national level, and to continue to talk about equity and giving access to students who typically didn’t have access and providing opportunities and experience to kids from marginalized communities.
I also want to look at recruiting, hiring, and retaining administrators of color. I’m not saying that non-minority administrators aren’t capable, but it’s always good for students of color to see other males and females of color in leadership positions, so it’s something that they can aspire to.
The number of students of color in the gifted and talented programs increased in your school. Could you talk about how?
Three years ago, we set a school-wide goal. [At the time] our Hispanic population was over 50% in our building, yet our Hispanic population in our gifted and talented program did not represent our overall school population.
Our school-wide goal is to increase the number of Hispanic students in our gifted and talented program. The program in Norwalk allows families to nominate themselves, but also allows teachers to nominate students, at least two times a year. So, teachers nominated students with that school goal in mind.
A lot of our Hispanic students did meet the criteria, but they just slipped through the cracks from elementary school to middle school. Two times a year, students can be tested and then we meet with our gifted and talented coordinator in our district, and we sit down and look at data. We look at student work samples, we look at teacher recommendations, and we look at parent nominations.
Then we give students access to [the] gifted and talented [program] right there—we don’t wait ‘til the following year because if you’re ready now, you’re ready now. You’re not going to waste a whole year of acceleration, right? We’re going to put you on track for more high leverage courses once you get to high school and then go to college. That early access is vitally important for our kids.
In the second year, our school-wide goal was to increase the number of Black students in the gifted and talented program, and we did that as well. And then last year, our goal was to increase the number of female students in accelerated math, and we did that as well.
We’ve made a lot of our school-wide goals around equity to address the disproportionality that exists in our school, and we’ve really done a fantastic job in doing so.
What after-school opportunities are available to students and parents, and how do you think it’s affected them?
We sent a survey out to students to ask them what they would like in an after-school program. We also sent a survey out to teachers about what they’d be willing to offer. We matched those interests. Because of our after-school clubs, our students’ chronic absenteeism had a dramatic drop.
When students go to class, they’re doing a lot more hands-on work, and they’re collaborating. They’re allowed to think critically, they’re allowed to effectively communicate, and present [projects] to authentic audience members.
We have about 40 people come in the last two weeks of school from outside of our school building to see students, presenting like a “Shark Tank” type of experience, where they work for eight straight days on a prototype and a business plan. They present and get feedback from people that are experts in the field.
Additionally, I hold a Hispanic parent group meeting every month for parent engagement. The Hispanic community is my largest demographic in my school. The first Wednesday of every month, we have food, and we invite all the parents. We get about 50 parents in our library. The meeting is facilitated in all Spanish. We bring in guest speakers.
[For example,] during this time, we’re going through a pretty tough time with the government and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. I wasn’t afraid to bring in immigration lawyers to talk about rights and give out those red cards.
I’ve never shied away from bucking the status quo. I will call myself a nice and gentle disrupter if it’s going to help families and communities and kids, whereas some leaders may say, “I’m not bringing that into my building.”
I [also] have something called “Walkthrough Wednesdays,” the third Wednesday of every month. I open up my school doors and I let anyone come in—parents, community members, and community agencies—for a walking, talking tour of our building in real time.
The kids and staff are there. The kids don’t know we’re having visitors. I let the staff know about 10 minutes before. We’re walking through the building and we’re looking at what instruction looks like, what it sounds like, and what it feels like, so the community and the parents get an idea of what happens day to day. Then we have a Q&A session for about 20 minutes.
What challenges do you expect to face next year, and how do you plan to tackle them?
I don’t like to use the word challenges. I always like to use the term “opportunities for growth.” So, where can we grow next year?
Chronic absenteeism. We want to keep that way below 10%. I know 10% is considered great. We were at 7.7%. So, we will continue to incorporate what we’ve done in the past.
If a kid is out two days in a row, the homeroom teacher’s job to email the family or email the kid directly and say, “Hey, where have you been? You’ve been out for two days in a row.”
From there, it goes to the grade-level counselor. The grade-level counselor brings it to our dean of students. We have biweekly attendance meetings with our dean of students and our three grade-level counselors.
We send out the first draft of letters, then the second draft of letters. We make home visits. School is just too important to miss at this age.
Then, secondly, it’s always student achievement. Are we incorporating the latest and greatest, standards-based instruction for tier one in our classes, so all kids have access, regardless of ability level?
[We are] always making sure we’re staying ahead of all the latest professional development and providing students and staff members with what they need. A lot of people talk about differentiated work for students, but it’s also differentiated work for staff as well. All staff don’t operate on the same battery level, there’s different bandwidth, so that professional development has to be differentiated as well.
