Roxbury Prep Principal Gets Standing Ovation at Celtics Game

BOSTON - For the Roxbury Prep High School students who came to TD Garden in December to watch their principal honored by the Boston Celtics as Hero Among Us, it made perfect sense that Titciana Barros was selected for the recognition.

After all, she has been a hero to them.

She herself was a Roxbury Prep student long ago, and she now leads the school that has a college prep mission. Roxbury Prep High School has proposed a project for 361 Belgrade Avenue in Roslindale to create a state of the art high school facility for its students, who for the past several years have had two campuses miles apart, separating 9th and 10th graders from 11th and 12th graders.

Last year, 94% of its first graduating class matriculated into four-year colleges, and 100% of seniors have taken at least one Advanced Placement (AP) class, with 62% passing at least one AP exam. AP classes are highly correlated with college completion. By comparison, across the United States, only 39% of public school students take any AP exams during high school and 24% actually pass an exam prior to graduating.

In recent weeks, seniors have already started hearing back from colleges. One student has a full ride to Brown University. Another is going to Georgetown University on an athletic scholarship. UMass, Northeastern, Wesleyan, Swarthmore are just a few of the schools students have already been accepted to with big scholarship awards.

It’s no wonder the Celtics honored Barros for her dedication to educating the youth of Boston, calling her a “shining example” of an educator who “instills a culture of joy and high expectations” to help her students achieve their goals.

“This is such an honor, but it’s not just for me. It’s for everyone at our school who works so hard every day to educate our scholars,” Barros said. “Our students are overcoming challenges, they are persisting on their road to college and they’re excelling.”

Barros started at Roxbury Prep as a middle schooler, when Roxbury Prep's founder, John King, was her principal. King went on to become President Barack Obama's U.S. Secretary of Education.

Barros, who received her bachelor’s degree from Boston College and her master’s degree from Boston University, is the first Roxbury Prep alum to become a principal at the high-performing public charter high school.

Barros, who played on her high school basketball team and grew up a Celtics fan, received a standing ovation when her name was announced and she appeared on the Garden HDX scoreboard during the second quarter of the game against the Charlotte Hornets.

It’s not the first time Barros has been recognized for her role in creating a culture of success at the school, whose mission is to ensure students enter into and graduate from college.

In November, she was recognized at the State House for her "dedication" to her community by "empowering and serving students and faculty" of Roxbury Prep. The commendation was sponsored by Rep. Liz Miranda and was supported by the entire membership of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

Rep. Miranda tweeted about the Celtics award saying Barros’s story “of coming from our community, then as a student at Roxbury Prep who now is a Woman of Color as Principal is so worth celebrating.