Stephen Cochrane once thought he wanted to be the secretary of state.
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Stephen Cochrane once thought he wanted to be the secretary of state.
Instead he leads the public school system in the town in which he attended college. He is in his fourth month as the Princeton superintendent of schools — a time seemingly consumed by snowstorms and school closings.
At 53, he was hired to take over from Judith A. Wilson and lead a system of around 3,500 students. How many changes he makes remains to be seen in a place where community expectations of the public schools are high. Princeton students graduate from the local high school to attend some of the best colleges in the country and the world.
”I think you get judged on the success of our students and how well they’re doing and how happy they might be,” he said. “So I think part of my work right now is to . . . find out from parents, from the community, what are your hopes and dreams for your kids?”
In a 40-minute interview last week, he reflected on deciding to make public education a career, why he left a job he was happy in to take this one and how the public should evaluate his performance.
”I wanted the job for the same reason that I pursued all the other positions in the field of education — that was to make a difference in the lives of children and families,” he said, seated in a conference room in the district administration building. “I did not consciously seek, however, to become a superintendent.”
With a crop of dark hair and a trim build, he has a movie star quality about him. He likens being a first-time superintendent to being a rookie quarterback in the National Football League.
”The issues come at you faster, they’re bigger and there are a lot more people watching,” Mr. Cochrane said.
He does not have to go it alone. He has a mentoring team of experienced superintendents whom he can reach out to, including Thomas A. Smith of Hopewell Valley Regional.
His journey to Princeton began as a young man. When he was 17, he left his home in Washington state to attend Princeton University. He was interested in politics and international relations, but within his freshman year, he soon found his niche in English literature.
He recalled then-university President William Bowen talking about the university having an impact on k-12 education. Those were words that would have an impact.
After graduating in 1981, he was not sure what he would do. The university hired him to work in the admissions office; he liked it so much that he thought he would make a career in higher education.
Harvard University beckoned for graduate school in educational administration. During his time there, he worked as a residence director at Wheelock College, a Boston-based school that focused on preparing early childhood education teachers.
After graduating from Harvard, he worked at Wheelock for three years as associate dean of admissions, and then returned to Princeton as assistant dean of students.
”But the whole time I was doing that,” he said, “I kept thinking I could make a bigger difference for children if I was working with them at the beginning of the educational process instead of at the end and if I were working with them in public education as opposed to private.”
He left the university to become an elementary school teacher in South Brunswick. It meant a huge pay cut — but he felt the choice was the right one. Teaching was a struggle, he recalled.
”While being a mediocre teacher is not that hard, being a great teacher is the hardest job in the world,” he said. “I think I got better at my craft every year.”
Advancing to become a principal, he was able to get into classrooms to see other great teachers — educators who “reach beyond the blackboard and make learning come alive.”
In 2013, Ms. Wilson announced that she would leave the district at the end of the year. Mr. Cochrane was one of the candidates vying to replace her, even though he was “happy” and “content” working as an assistant superintendent in Upper Freehold.
He saw, however, an opportunity to “give back” to the community “that had given so much to me.”
In his job interview, he wanted the Princeton school board to know what his values and experiences were and what his vision was. He said he was “moved” at the first question that he was asked, about how do we help students graduate happy.
”And I knew at that moment . . . that I had found . . . a district that was truly focused on the whole child,” he said.
To Mr. Cochrane, Princeton has the reputation, resources and challenges that allow it to become a “lighthouse” school district for the rest of the nation at a time “when we need to solve some problems in education.” One of his first ideas is to create a committee to look at student wellness.
As superintendent, he and the district are not only readying a generation of high school students for the world today but also preparing kindergartners for the future.
”So if we’re going to be successful as an organization,” he said, “we have to look at our 5 and 6-year-olds and say, what is the world that they’re going to be inheriting and how do we prepare them for it. That world 20 years from now is not going to be the same as it is right now.”
Interestingly, he is part of a trio of education leaders who attended either undergraduate or undergraduate school in Princeton around the late 1970s and early 1980s and returned to lead important institutions within the past year. Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber and Mr. Cochrane were undergraduates at the university, while Princeton Theological Seminary President M. Craig Barnes was a graduate student at the seminary.
Mr. Cochrane said that one of the things that makes Princeton distinct is the number of community partners committed to the school children. He has spent time reaching out to local nursery schools, the public library and other organizations around town.
Yet if one word could sum up his first three months, it might be snow. It snowed his first day, and seemed to snow every so often after that. He said going through all that helped him with his communication with the community.
”In a way, it may have enhanced my entry into the district because I was thrust into having to partner in such critical ways with the municipality,” he said.
He said he believes in collaborative leadership, drawn from different perspectives. It is the same mentality that comes with his being a competitive cyclist.
”When you’re travelling as a group of cyclists, you travel much faster together than you do by yourself because pushing through the wind uses 30 percent more effort if you’re out in front than when you’re sitting behind somebody else,” he said. “I believe that there are people out there who are smarter than I am, and I want to surround myself with them.”

