Roger F. Harris
Dr. Roger F. Harris has devoted 42 years working in K-12 schools and universities in greater Boston. He has worked in traditional public and charter public high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools as a classroom teacher, athletic coach, mentor, dean, assistant headmaster, principal, and superintendent, earning national and international recognition as an outstanding educator.
Roger was born and raised in the Roxbury section of Boston, attended the Boston Public Schools, served three years of active duty with the United States Marine Corps, including a thirteen month tour of duty with a combat unit in Vietnam. He is featured in the Ken Burns & Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War recently released nationally and internationally on PBS. He was a football standout at Boston University, where he earned “Most Valuable Backfield Player” and a Bachelors Degree. He received a Masters Degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston (formerly Boston State College), and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Boston College.
Dr. Harris has served for over ten years as a mentor principal to the Harvard Graduate School of Education and most recently served as Faculty Director and Assistant Professor of Practice at the Boston University School of Education’s Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies (ELPS) department. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the Boston College Lynch School of Education, Curry College, and the University of Massachusetts Boston.
He has been the recipient of numerous civic and community awards, including the U.S. Department of Education’s National Distinguished Principal Award, the Massachusetts Principal of the Year Award, the Boston University School of Education’s Distinguished Alumni Award, The John Stanford American Hero Award and the President’s Award from the NAACP of Boston to name a few.
He has recently retired as Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer of the Boston Renaissance Charter Public Schools. He is the founder and president of Urban School Specialists, LLC an educational consulting consortium. He is the Executive Producer of The Positive Youth Project and It Takes A Village educational series aired on Boston Neighborhood Network television. He is the former Principal of the two-time National Blue Ribbon Award winning James P. Timilty Middle School in Boston and is a co-founder of the award-winning Roxbury Preparatory Charter Public School of Boston.
Dr. Harris believes it important for children to see themselves as citizens of a global community. He travels extensively to China serving as a delegate to the Chinese Bridge to American Schools Program, and has developed partnerships and exchange programs with Chinese Universities and K-12 schools. He has introduced mandatory Mandarin language classes for elementary school children in Boston, has taken students, their parents, and teachers to The Great Wall of China and was recently invited to Beijing to receive the Confucius Classroom of The Year Award.
Roger was born and raised in the Roxbury section of Boston, attended the Boston Public Schools, served three years of active duty with the United States Marine Corps, including a thirteen month tour of duty with a combat unit in Vietnam. He is featured in the Ken Burns & Lynn Novick documentary The Vietnam War recently released nationally and internationally on PBS. He was a football standout at Boston University, where he earned “Most Valuable Backfield Player” and a Bachelors Degree. He received a Masters Degree from the University of Massachusetts Boston (formerly Boston State College), and a Doctor of Philosophy Degree from Boston College.
Dr. Harris has served for over ten years as a mentor principal to the Harvard Graduate School of Education and most recently served as Faculty Director and Assistant Professor of Practice at the Boston University School of Education’s Education, Leadership, and Policy Studies (ELPS) department. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the Boston College Lynch School of Education, Curry College, and the University of Massachusetts Boston.
He has been the recipient of numerous civic and community awards, including the U.S. Department of Education’s National Distinguished Principal Award, the Massachusetts Principal of the Year Award, the Boston University School of Education’s Distinguished Alumni Award, The John Stanford American Hero Award and the President’s Award from the NAACP of Boston to name a few.
He has recently retired as Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer of the Boston Renaissance Charter Public Schools. He is the founder and president of Urban School Specialists, LLC an educational consulting consortium. He is the Executive Producer of The Positive Youth Project and It Takes A Village educational series aired on Boston Neighborhood Network television. He is the former Principal of the two-time National Blue Ribbon Award winning James P. Timilty Middle School in Boston and is a co-founder of the award-winning Roxbury Preparatory Charter Public School of Boston.
Dr. Harris believes it important for children to see themselves as citizens of a global community. He travels extensively to China serving as a delegate to the Chinese Bridge to American Schools Program, and has developed partnerships and exchange programs with Chinese Universities and K-12 schools. He has introduced mandatory Mandarin language classes for elementary school children in Boston, has taken students, their parents, and teachers to The Great Wall of China and was recently invited to Beijing to receive the Confucius Classroom of The Year Award.