Cape High's new assistant principal strives for the best

Cape High's newest assistant principal may look like another high school student, but he brings nearly a decade of experience to his latest post.

Kyle Bentley has filled the assistant principal position left open when Nikki Miller was promoted to Cape High principal.

The New York native grew up near Lake Erie and attended Penn State University where he earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education with a minor in Spanish in 2008. Going straight to work in the Kensington area of Philadelphia, Bentley taught inner-city, bilingual students at Julia de Burgos Elementary. “I was attracted to work in the inner city,” he said. “The school was 85 percent Latino.”

Bentley worked there five years, all the while working on a master's degree in curriculum and instruction from Penn State that he earned in 2012.

Fresh with a new degree, he enrolled in the Delaware Leadership Project which helped lead him to a job as associate principal at Seaford High School. During his three years at Seaford, he worked as director of Seaford's Tech Academy. He also met and worked with Miller while she was in charge of Seaford's International Baccalaureate program. “It's been great to get back and work with Nikki,” he said.

Bentley said he enjoys working in Lewes, where he has lived with his wife Alessandra since the couple moved to Delaware. Bentley spent a year as assistant principal at Lake Forest School District's Chipman Middle School before he was hired by Cape.

“I like the community piece of it; I never have worked where I live,” he said.

Now he does, and he brings enthusiasm to his new job. Bentley said he will continue the work Miller started with Cape's 1:1 iPad program that gives all high school students an iPad to work on. He also will work on the school's advanced placement program and SAT preparation. He said he plans to continuously improve AP classes – all the same courses from previous years – and provide SAT prep classes to improve test scores. “We need to get those scores up. It's not where we want to be,” he said about Cape High's performance in 2017. Scores slipped from last year with only a quarter of students proficient in math and about half in reading.

This year, Bentley said, students will receive SAT prep every day during an enrichment period which will provide help through test prep programs Adventum and the Kahn Academy. “The kids are lucky to get that help every day,” he said.