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Date: 7/20/2023
AGAWAM — Mayor William Sapelli is worthy of honor, but so is Robinson State Park’s namesake and the community that has grown up around that name, a group of parents argued at the July 10 City Council meeting.
The three speakers, who said they represented a larger group of Robinson Park School parents, said the Agawam School Committee should reverse its decision to rename the K-4 school on Begley Street after Sapelli. The change, voted at the committee’s final meeting of the school year, is set to take effect when the new school year begins.
“It really seemed like a surprise, and it seemed like it happened very suddenly,” said Kerry Cordis. “It’s so confusing to these young kids.”
She said the RPS community is still reeling from a 2017 proposal to convert the school to a district-wide early childhood center and split up neighborhood families among the remaining elementary schools.
Before its June 27 vote, the School Committee noted that Robinson Park School is the only one of Agawam’s four elementary schools not named after a former superintendent. In addition to having served as mayor for the past five and a half years, Sapelli was Agawam’s school superintendent for six years, and was principal of RPS from 1990 to 2002.
Jesse Clauson, whose daughters attended the school, said changing the name will mean the end of the school’s highly successful behavior code, “The RPS Way,” which coaches children to “Be Responsible, Be Polite, Be Safe,” and the school mascot, Robbie the Eagle. Both are a big part of the culture for current students and touchstones for alumni, he said.
RPS parent Jessica Crowley echoed Clauson’s comments, and added that the current name is an indirect way to honor John Robinson, who donated the land for the state park. The parents proposed that the School Committee rename Agawam Junior High School or Agawam High School after Sapelli, and keep the Robinson name where it is.
School Committee members, after the City Council meeting, said the vote was taken in public session, advertised on a published agenda and discussed at a previous meeting, and that Robinson Park School administrators were aware of the plan. They said the same procedure was followed as in 2010, when Agawam Middle School was renamed after Roberta Doering.