In 1997, when Ernest Logan was principal of Intermediate School 55 in Brownsville, the president of the local school board called for his firing.
The school board leader said he was one of five principals up for tenure in Brooklyn's District 23, where kids were performing poorly on standardized tests.
But, according to news reports, the district superintendent came to Logan's defense and saw that he got tenure. Similar battles would not be as easily won today.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has vowed to fire principals whose students don't improve - and today Logan is the one charged with standing up for all city principals.
In the three months since he became president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators - a 6,000-member union representing principals, assistant principals and supervisors - he's come close to doing what his predecessor could not.
Sources say he's on the brink of signing a contract giving his members raises of at least 22% - their first pay hike since their latest contract expired in 2003.
But the affable former middle school principal - the union's first African-American president - has taken the helm of a union with a divided membership and facing constantly changing rules.
Klein is giving all 1,400 principals unprecedented control over their schools, but the new freedom makes them more like managers and less like employees who need union representation. Meanwhile, the long wait for a contract has bred resentment.
"I'd like to have my dues back because they don't do a ... thing," said Principal Robert Leder of Lehman High School in the Bronx.
A majority of Logan's members are assistant principals, whose needs can be at odds with the needs of principals. Logan, therefore, faces the difficult task of keeping them united, but his supporters say he's up to the job.
"Ernie's a very strong leader. He's personable and he's got a lot of common sense," said Jim Harrigan, principal of Brooklyn's Public School 299.
Logan's predecessor, Jill Levy, had been a sometimes divisive figure in her dealings with the city, and critics say that dragged out contract negotiations.
Logan, whose $176,600 salary is less than the $198,903 Levy was making when she stepped down, is a "genuinely nice person," said one former CSA staffer. "He's not a bridge burner. He likes to work things out."
