Life Lessons Through Treating the Person, Not the Injury There are mentors who teach you what to do, and then there are mentors who quietly show you how to be. Long before I ever stood in front of a faculty, addressed a national audience, or was entrusted with leading Staten Island Technical High School, I … Continue reading Mentor Moments: Thank you, Dr. Larry Kopelman!
The Courage to Step Out of Line & The Name Tag That Changed Everything (For my son, Mark Erlenwein, Jr., who is now the same age I was when this story began, yet already carries more courage, self-awareness, and moral clarity than I did at that moment in my life. You are living proof that … Continue reading Thank You, Jimmy Miranda
College and or Career Readiness in the Age of AI in 2025 - The Coming Workforce Winter and What Education Must Do Before the Job Market Freezes by Mark Erlenwein, Principal - Staten Island Technical High School I’ve been in public education long enough to have seen pendulum swings, policy cycles, silver bullets, and reforms … Continue reading Portrait of a Graduate, Portrait of a Crisis: What Education Must Fix Before the Future Arrives
by Mark Erlenwein (Special thanks to Dr. Lavie Margolin and John ‘Poz’ Pozarowski for the fun interview on Episode 261 of “The Business of the Business” podcast, which inspired writing this article.) If you had told four-year-old me, perched on my father’s shoulders outside Madison Square Garden, waiting to rub WWF champion, Bob Backlund’s crew-cut … Continue reading Suplexes, Scantrons, and School Spirit: How Wrestling Raised a Principal
In August 2025, a new law went into effect across New York State, requiring all public schools to ban personal cell phone use during the school day. For many, this may feel like a revolutionary moment. But for those of us who’ve been in the trenches of education for decades, balancing the marvels of innovation … Continue reading Settings: School Mode
The PDF of Mr. Erlenwein's Presentation is available via: https://bit.ly/PrinChitChatPDF926
Link to PDF: https://bit.ly/SPAprezPDF
https://youtu.be/bJ-FhsjbLNo NYC’s most recognizable city workers go by the monikers of finest, bravest, strongest and brightest. The NYPD, police department, New York's finest, protects lives. The FDNY, Fire Department, New York's bravest, saves lives. The DSNY Sanitation Department, New York's strongest, keeps our streets clean. The NYCPS, New York City Public Schools, New York’s brightest, … Continue reading No Early Voting at Schools – NYC’s Brightest
(Click here to view the original article on NASSP's Principal Leadership Magazine • December 2023) In November of 2022, ChatGPT appeared, giving context to Elon Musk’s “civilization destruction” prophecy that AI will permeate—and possibly destroy—all aspects of society. With meteoric impact, the first notable ripple of concern quickly turned into a tsunami of anxiety in classrooms around … Continue reading Ahead of the AI Curve: Navigating Rapid Technological Change
We’re in the plasmapause, a place of equilibrium, where the forces of the earth meet the forces of the sun. I imagine it as a place of stillness, where the particles of dust stop spinning and hang motionless in deep space. - Jo Ann Beard We all have side projects, passions and hobbies, things we … Continue reading Plasmapause – A 30 Year Journey to my first EP Album
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