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Principal Diahann Malcolm, at center, leads two students in rope-jumping drills during gym class.

Students who failed gym last year at the High School of Law Enforcement and Public Safety have an unlikely teacher in their makeup class this summer: their principal, Diahann Malcolm.

For 90 minutes on each of the school’s 27 days of summer classes, Malcolm is setting aside her considerable administrative duties to coax coach potatoes and class clowns into breaking a sweat.

Malcolm began her career three decades ago as a physical education teacher and she falls easily back into the role each day, donning a Nike tracksuit and showing off her own athletic abilities, honed through decades of distance running and competitive rope-jumping.

But it was budget cuts, not her love of fitness, that pushed Malcolm back into the classroom.

HSLEPS doesn’t look like a school in fiscal distress. The school occupies its own 7-year-old, six-story building in a low-slung section of central Queens. Inside the sun-drenched, colorful space, there are two large gyms, a library with a balcony overlooking Jamaica, a mock courtroom, gleaming science labs, and rooms of computers on every floor.

But like all city schools, HSLEPS is contending with its third straight year of budget cuts. Several years ago, Malcolm said, she could pay four teachers to offer summer classes. Now, she can only afford two. (more…)