State education officials are so concerned about the lack of improvement under Narcisse that they are withholding more than $900,000 in federal funds until the school comes up with a better plan to fix its problems. If that fails, one of the oldest public high schools in the United States could face state takeover as early as next year.

“The progress we are seeing there is not what I would hope for,” said Mitchell Chester, the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education whose agency reported in January that teachers were confused and distrustful of Narcisse’s plans and fearful that if they complained they would be viewed as disloyal.

“I’d rather see the district pull this off . . . but at the end of the day, if this [turnaround] doesn’t happen at district level, we will look at receivership,” Chester added.

Narcisse, who is departing to become director of school performance in Montgomery County, Md., insists that he got English High moving in the right direction, pointing to a slight uptick in 10th grade MCAS scores and the success stories of students who, like Hussain, are going on to good colleges.

“I will not sit here and lie to you and say three years in, we got a perfect thing,” said Narcisse, 36, in an interview. “It was a sinking ship and the last headmaster worked hard to plug the holes. I can tell you now the ship isn’t sinking.”

In fact, Narcisse came to English when many teachers, students, and parents were still fuming that Johnson had removed his predecessor, Jose Duarte, who had mixed results. Teachers were showing signs of burnout from the extra work to implement Duarte’s changes, the state found, yet standardized test scores remained abysmal and only a little more than half of the class of 2009 graduated within four years.