Sah Brown · 2022 Spark Award Winner

The past few years have been challenging for schools everywhere but Eastern High School, which brands itself “the Pride of Capitol Hill,” has been fortunate – since 2016 it has had steady leadership in the person of Sah Brown. A commanding physical presence with a low-key manner, Brown has chosen to see the unexpected events of the past few years less as problems to be solved than as opportunities to reach out, to see who in the school community needs more help with technology, more chances to interact with faculty, more care.

Growing up in Amityville, Long Island, Sah learned to take his studies seriously even as he was discovering a talent for and a love of basketball. Recruited to play at Lehigh University, he majored in political science and enjoyed both the education and the sports. For two years after college, he played in the NBA minor leagues with brief stints in Mexico and China. But the business of sport took the joy out of playing so he decided to, as he puts it, “deflate the ball and focus on other pursuits.”

Those other pursuits, plus a college roommate who lived in Washington, led him to a program called D.C. Teaching Fellows. Earning a Master’s Degree in Special Education and Education Administration at Trinity University, while teaching Special Education at Anacostia High School, Sah found that he had been “bit by the education bug.” Though he still thought that teaching might lead him back to basketball as a coach, he began to realize that the connections he was making with students and fellow teachers were compelling. After serving as Special Education coordinator at Margaret Murray Washington High School he moved into administration, serving at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School, Hardy Middle School, Cardozo High School and Roosevelt High School. 

Brown sees Eastern as a place where students from all over DC can “experience it all,” from the rigorous college preparatory academics of an International Baccalaureate program to the training of future doctors, nurses and EMTs at the Academy of Health Sciences, with competitive sports, an acclaimed marching band and choir, and a garden and horticulture program that is “the best kept secret in the city.” And more than all this, students at Eastern become Ramblers, part of a tradition that stretches back almost 100 years to 1923 when the school was built. Sah Brown looks forward to celebrating that anniversary next year.

Sah Brown is the father of two children, Taylor and Chandler, both students at Two Rivers Public Charter School. His wife, Emily Brown, is a nutritionist at Bridge Integrative Health and Nutrition.