This Southwest Philly principal is one of the district’s best. Here’s what makes her shine.

Philadelphia came to LeAndrea Baltimore-Hagan in a dream.

Growing up in Louisville, Ky., Hagan and her identical twin sister had plans to become lawyers, and she studied business in college and was prepping for the LSAT. But one night, Hagan had a dream — she was teaching and leading a school.

When Hagan heard about Teach for America, the program that recruits college graduates to commit to working in underserved school districts for two years, it felt fated. She applied two days before the deadline in 2003, and was accepted to the program, aware she could be sent anywhere in the country to fill a classroom vacancy.

“I remember laying across my dorm room bed, and the word ‘Philadelphia’ came across my eyes illuminated in light across my eyes, and a week later I found out I made the Philly corps,” said Hagan. “I believe it’s called me from a young age.”

Hagan came to the Philadelphia School District and never left. Now, she’s the beloved principal at Patterson Elementary in Southwest Philadelphia and a winner of a prestigious Lindback Award for Principal Leadership, hailed for her joyful, intentional work and the all-out love she has for her students and staff.

Hagan and the other 2026 Lindback principal awardees — Sakia Beard-Brinkley at Richard Wright Elementary, Michelle Burns at Randolph High School, Darryl Johnson Jr. at George Washington Carver High School for Engineering and Science, Vance McNear at Forrest Elementary, Lauren Overton at Penn Alexander, and Dana Singeltary at Feltonville Intermediate — are examples of the best leaders the city has to offer.

Coming into a new career in a new city wasn’t easy. Hagan, who taught at Barratt Middle School in Point Breeze and then Morton Elementary in Southwest Philadelphia, combined her business education with her people skills to figure out how best to reach her students.

“As a classroom teacher, I tried to understand and dissect the standards, and then I created joy in my classroom,” said Hagan. She gave her kids opportunities like taking them roller skating and out to eat at buffets, or starting a cheer squad. She created rhymes for everything, drawing on her past in a gospel rap group to create raps for everything from school spirit to how to write an essay.

“I lived at the school, and I fell in love with it,” said Hagan. I had a lot of challenges in my classroom, but I felt like it was my calling. It was like I had stepped into something that was one of the hardest things I’ve experienced, but it gave me the, the biggest joy, and, and I was in the right place."

Hagan planted roots in Southwest Philadelphia, working at Morton for nearly a decade as a teacher and school-based teacher leader before moving on to become an assistant principal at Bryant Elementary, then, in 2017, principal of Blankenburg Elementary, in West Philadelphia.

She led Blankenburg for five years before returning to Southwest Philly, taking over as principal of Patterson, at 70th and Buist, in 2022.

Ask Hagan about what she loves about her job, and she doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s like liberation: we talk about liberation as creating the conditions for everyone to thrive, innovate and experience belonging,” she said. “I believe as principal, I can create the environment for that. I’m big on making sure the adults are taken care of, making sure the children are taken care of.”

Supporting teachers is paramount to her work.

Hagan is big on the little things that allow her people to do their best work. She put massage chairs in the teachers’ lounge and endeavors to find money — via her budget or outside donations — so Patterson staff members don’t have to dip into their own pockets to buy supplies. She has regular check-ins with her Philadelphia Federation of Teachers building committee to make sure morale is up. Hagan is an instructional leader, but she also attends her staff’s weddings, family members’ funerals, and baby showers.

“We rally around our teachers to keep them,” said Hagan. “Teachers want to feel successful, and when they feel successful, they stay.”

That goes for her students, too. Hagan is not in an-her-office principal, she’s front and center, greeting students, showing up at morning assembly, covering a class if the need arises.

Hagan is keenly aware of her school’s academic objectives, what her kids need to know, her students’ data. But she centers the things that make them want to come to school, like the back-to-school barbecue, the pep rallies, and the celebrations of positive behavior and academic accomplishments.

Patterson teachers stick around — the average Patterson teacher has 20 years experience — and Patterson students have strong attendance.

“Our kids love coming to school, they don’t want to miss out on anything,” said Hagan. “My parents are texting me, ‘Look, I have a kid with a 102 degree fever, but they still want to come to school.’”

(Good attendance is important, but Hagan tells those parents: Keep your child at home, we’ll welcome them back when they recover.)

Tamir Harper first met Hagan when he was a student at Morton in the early 2000s. Harper is now a former Philadelphia teacher working in education advocacy. He can still recite the rap Hagan taught his class to remember how to write a strong essay — and he employed it with his eighth graders at Lea Elementary.

(Green is the topic sentence/yellow is the transition/red, explain, explain/give two examples, and that’s the end of the game.)

“Ms. Hagan is one of the foundational teachers that made me interested in teaching,” said Harper. “She made it exciting.”

As a leader, Harper said, Hagan “thinks of the things that oftentimes are forgotten about. The intentionality behind her work, the care that she invests in people, is unmatched.”

Hagan’s leadership yields results, too. Patterson has demonstrated strong growth in math and reading proficiency.

She also fosters a school culture with rich partnerships and welcomes the community, with several volunteers at Patterson daily.

And she’s not finished, Hagan said.

“I love to sit at home and think, ‘What am I going to do differently next year?’ How can I make the fall festival a little different? How can I make more kids come to school. How can I connect with parents in different ways? What do I want the school to look like on the inside? I’m thinking about what the school’s going to look like in five years. It brings me so much joy.”