Drema Brown

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT DREMA BROWN

If you’re a mission-driven educational leader, you know what it feels like to go beyond your job description daily. You care deeply about your students, your staff, and the community your school serves. But somewhere along the way, the weight of that responsibility can become overwhelming and isolating. The work you love begins to feel unsustainable. I learned this the hard way in the spring of 2007 during my fourth year as a principal in the Bronx. Our school was in the middle of an incredible turnaround—stronger instruction, a healthier culture, and a community beginning to believe in the school again. However, that spring a devastating building fire in the Bronx took the lives of ten people, most of them children. One was a bright and joyful first grader from my school—a little girl whose jump rope I had turned many times at recess. As principal, I had to guide our community through the grief. I told the staff and families. I told her classmates. Anyone who has ever had to break the hearts of a room full of children knows there are few responsibilities heavier than that. I kept going because I believed that’s what leaders do. For weeks I carried my own grief while holding space for everyone else’s. The school still had to run. Reports had to be filed. Emails answered. More than 400 children still needed a school that felt safe and steady. Eventually, the strain caught up with me. Exhausted and overwhelmed—and a single parent trying to show up at home—I made the painful decision to leave a role deeply aligned with my purpose because I could not see a sustainable way forward. That experience changed how I think about leadership. Burnout is not the inevitable cost of caring deeply. A better path is building systems of communal care instead of relying on individual endurance. The strongest leaders don’t carry everything alone. They create environments where adults support one another, where failure begets growth, and where the pause is just as powerful as the push.Currently, I work with educators who care deeply about their students and who are overwhelmed at times. Together, we focus on helping each other put on our oxygen masks while building a school culture where well-being and strong student outcomes co-exist. When leaders feel supported instead of isolated, schools become places where both adults and children can thrive. If you’re doing this work and sometimes wonder how to keep going, you’re not alone. I’m always open to connecting with educators who care deeply about building schools that sustain the people inside them.