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Date: 3/22/2022
NORTHAMPTON – Tom Moore, the adjustment counselor at Smith Vocational & Agricultural High School, recently won the Harold Grinspoon Foundation Teacher of the Year award.
According to the Harold Grinspoon website, the program annually honors more than a hundred outstanding Western Massachusetts educators in Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties and seeks to motivate teachers at all stages of their careers to aspire to excellence.
“I was a little blown away at first,” Moore told Reminder Publishing, reminiscing on when he initially heard about the award. “It’s a pretty big deal, and I’m excited about it.”
Moore said that his main job on a day-to-day basis is meeting with students who have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), which are maps that lay out a program of special education instruction, supports, and services students need to make progress and thrive in school.
“Beyond that, with COVID[-19], my job has expanded quite a bit,” said Moore. “A lot of it is dealing with kids who have anxiety, depression, trauma … I think we’ve had a lot of kids who’ve had a lot of loss the last couple of years. Anxieties are pretty much an epidemic in all the schools right now.”
The next few months will be integral, according to Moore, since many students still face anxiety from the last two years of the pandemic, and even some years before that. “I don’t think a lot is going to change, other than I can finally see their faces now,” said Moore. “We’re still dealing with eating disorders, self-harm, kids with panic attacks, kids with anxiety. All that is still really, really high. Hopefully having some sense of normalcy will help us teach them some of the skills they need to work through that a little better.”
Moore told Reminder Publishing that he has been an adjustment counselor for close to a decade at Smith Vocational. Before that, he worked at therapeutic boarding schools, as well as the Tri-County Schools in Easthampton. In all, he has been working in this type of field for 22 years.
According to Moore, most schools have 10 to 12 percent of students who have IEPs, but at Smith, that number is closer to 50 percent.
The adjustment counselor said that watching student succeed in multiple facets brings him the most joy as an educator. “Some may come in from middle school barely passing, and then by the time they’re seniors, they’re going to college,” said Moore, when speaking on the rewarding aspects of his job. “Seeing students grow and realize they are a lot better learners than they thought they were. We’ve seen a lot of great outcomes.”
After becoming a history major as an undergraduate student, Moore joined the Peace Corps for three years when he was younger. Immediately following this period, Moore decided to go into public mental health work, and got his master’s degree after finding out he really enjoyed the field. “I just found I really enjoyed working with kids that the rest of society either missed or have given up on,” said Moore.
When asked to what he attributes his success, Moore mentioned his determination and hard-working mentality. “Honestly, I work with a lot of great people,” said Moore. “The other counselors I work with at the school are really, really good and we all support each other.