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Date: 9/22/2022
WEST SPRINGFIELD — Coburn School’s new building and a suite of new administrators are the obvious changes as the new school year begins, but Vito Perrone focused on what’s happening inside that building, and what promises he and his staff are making, in his first interim superintendent report at the School Committee meeting on Sept. 13.
“Opening day does not just happen on that first day of school, it happens throughout the summer,” said Perrone.
The former assistant superintendent, who now leads the West Springfield School Department since the departure over the summer of Timothy Connor, said that during the vacation, he brainstormed with his teachers, principals and administrators about what message to communicate at the start of the 2022-23 school year.
“One of the things we heard [was that] we need to set expectations, and reset expectations, that had been pushed aside by the realities of COVID[-19],” Perrone told the School Committee. “That’s what we’re missing, is students not understanding what the expectation was for behavior at lunch, for behavior in the classroom, for behavior at recess. They forgot how to be kids outside playing together.”
He said administrators were asked to carefully examine their roles in the school system, and define their responsibilities to their bosses, their employees and to students. Principals and teachers were asked to do the same, and to communicate clearly with students and parents about their expectations.
“What’s your role, what’s your responsibility. There’s an energy that really came from that simple message that we collaboratively agreed upon,” Perrone said.
“The piece that’s really, I think, important is framing those things, roles, responsibilities, expectations, with four C’s we’ve talked about: communication, collaboration, community and compassion.”
School Committee member Diana Coyne said she’s glad to see a renewed emphasis on setting expectations for students, particularly after a recent conversation with a parent who complained that standards had been set aside during the disruptions of the coronavirus pandemic.
Administrators have been talking about the need to reinforce behavioral norms since students returned to in-person classrooms, said School Committee member William Garvey, but he was impressed by “the personal responsibility part” of Perrone’s efforts. He said he liked that Central Office staff were talking about their duties to teachers and students, not just the other way around.
“I thought that was a great way to start out,” Garvey said.
Most West Springfield students returned to school on Sept. 1. Perrone said staff seem to be embracing the return to normalcy.
“There was really an excitement about people when they came into the building,” Perrone said. “Now, granted, there’s a lot to be excited about when you go into Coburn, it’s a brand-new space, but I felt the same excitement in Fausey and the same excitement at Tatham. We all acknowledge there’s going to be challenges, going to be difficulties, but if we can keep those things in line, … we hold people accountable to those [expectations], … then we’re in a better place, we can capitalize on the excitement, we can capitalize on the energy and push it forward. That’s the opening day I wanted to share with you.”
Kira Thompson, a School Committee member and a parent, said from what she has seen at West Springfield Middle School and Tatham School, the faculty is “doing a great job implementing expectations.”
Neil Gile, the interim assistant superintendent, reported that the new Coburn School opened on schedule. Demolition of the former Coburn building was expected to be complete this week, and work will continue until November or December to turn the old school site on Southworth Street into a parking lot for the adjacent new school, which faces Lathrop Street. After parking and traffic congestion on the first day of school, the school made some traffic pattern changes and “it’s been smooth sailing since then,” Gile said.