Welcome back everyone to the start of the 2013 – 2014 School Year. I am very proud to serve alongside each of you as Superintendent. I am delighted to be starting my third year in Montpelier Public Schools.
In my seventeen years as an educator, I have come across few if any irrefutable truths when it comes to education. One of the ones I do know and I take comfort in, both as a parent and a superintendent is this: everyone comes to serve in education for the right reasons. Every single person – Everyone. It is something that I firmly believe and am proud to proclaim about all the employees in Montpelier Public Schools.
Regardless of whether you are a teacher or a technology specialist, an instructional assistant or an instrumental teacher, payroll manager or principal, administrative assistant or an administrator, facilities or food service, everyone comes to this wonderful enterprise that we call Montpelier Public Schools for the right reasons and I am incredibly grateful – because every child that will come through our doors tomorrow needs someone. But not just anyone – every one of those students tomorrow needs a hero.
Rita Pierson – in a very powerful Ted Talk that was sent to me by our own City Manager Bill Fraser – pointed to the value, the intrinsic, powerful, and yet simple value of relationships.
Every child needs a hero – who will you be a hero to this year? Every single elementary child that walks through our doors tomorrow at Union, every single middle school child that walks through the doors tomorrow at Main Street, every single high school child that walks through the doors tomorrow here at MHS – every single one needs a hero. You need not wear a cape, you need not have a fancy degree, you don’t need a mask or tights, you need only have a heart that is in the right place.
Every single child needs someone to believe in him, every single child needs someone to encourage her, every single child needs someone to listen him, every single child needs someone to validate her.
Who knows when the next hero will be called upon? We all know of the heroism that was shown last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School; and we know that recently another school tragedy was averted in Atlanta by a clerk in the Business Office. How? She told NPR that connecting with the individual intent on bringing violence to that school. By sharing stories of her own life, by reaching out, by empathizing, by listening, by showing love. In 2013, that is heroic, those simple acts are heroic; that is what our children are looking for in us – it is what some adults are looking for in us. That heroism is present when we form, nurture, and maintain relationships. Who will you be a hero to this year? We need heroes – we need all of you! Please don’t wait – please start tomorrow.
Not that being a hero is easy – it is not. It takes determination, it takes perseverance, it takes grit. You may fail more times than you succeed. But, there is a difference between failing and being a failure. We all fail – and quite honestly, we all need to fail. Let me share with you a personal experience in which I failed, and oh did I fail!
I will set the scene. It is early in December 2007, the snow is falling, and I am in the basement of our home, diligently scratching out notes for the first chapter of my dissertation. You see, I passed my comprehensive exams earlier that fall and have been hard at work for the past two months working on my first chapter. The deadline for my first chapter is the following day (a Sunday as I recall). So on this particular Saturday night I am sitting in front of our computer (which is still a blank screen I might add) and trying to get some semblance of a first word, a first sentence, of the first chapter of my dissertation – and I am failing miserably – and have been for some time.
I finally emerge from our basement to the ground level floor in our home to see My Wife watching television.
She innocently asks, how did it go – and are you done?
What followed next from me was – in technical terms – a tantrum of child-like proportions. There was yelling (not very loudly – our children were asleep), there was throwing of notes and pencils (not very therapeutic or satisfying as you can’t really throw paper and a pencil has a dissatisfying sound when it hits the floor). Then there was silence…
Are you finished, My Wife asked me.
Yes, I said quietly and sheepishly.
She took a deep breath and said, OK – pick up your notes, pick up your pencil, and go put it all back in the basement. You’re going to call Dr. Israel tomorrow and tell here where you’re at – and that you need her help.
So I did just as My Wife told me – she’s brilliant, really – it’s one of the many reasons I married her. At the appointed hour that Sunday morning, I called my dissertation director. When she asked how it was going, I told her what happened last night – how I didn’t have a chapter for her to read and that I essentially pitched a monumental fit last night because I really had no idea what I was doing.
Then there was silence…
What happened next stunned me. She said, “Thank goodness. I was waiting for you to realize this – I’ve been waiting for this to happen. I am here to help you write your dissertation – I am here for you.” I am here for you. I needed to fail – I needed to fall flat on my face, perhaps I could have skipped the tantrum – but I needed to fail so that I could learn. Now, not every learning experience has to include failing – but as I think back upon my life, most of the meaningful ones did.
So today, Tuesday, August 27, 2013, I give everyone in this room permission to fail. I take that back – I am encouraging all of you to fail this year on behalf of the children we serve; I want every single person in this room to fail at least once this year in the service to a child; and after you fail, you need to ask for help. That last step is critical to ensuring that failing doesn’t become failure – asking for help, is the key step to persevering, to enduring, to protecting a failing from becoming a failure.
I completed my dissertation because I asked for and received help – please go and fail this year for the betterment of our students – and ask for help to preserve your commitment to those students. Please go – and fail as you strive to be a hero in Montpelier Public Schools. Our students need heroes!
As I look around this auditorium, the truth is, we already have many heroes in Montpelier Public Schools and this spring and summer, I know that we have hired more to serve our students and this community. So, at this time, I am going to invite all of our new faculty & staff to come up on stage so that we can celebrate them and welcome them into the family of heroes in Montpelier Public Schools.
Please hold all of your applause until everyone is on stage from all our buildings.
From UES:
Clarissa “Kiki” Adams, Grade 5
Rachel Aldrich-Whalen, Kindergarten
Rebecca Cardone, Literacy Coach
Tom Cate, Music
Pam Foster, School Secretary
Vanessa Freeman, Kindergarten
Chris Hennessey, Principal
Nancy Mears, Grade 3
Jennifer Williams, Long-Term Sub for Carrie Blodgett
From MSMS:
George Vassiliadis, Foreign Language
From MHS:
Tom Allen, Head Custodian
Bryan Lucas, Instructional Assistant
Seth McCoy, Athletic Trainer
Josh Parker, Math
Nathalie Sugarman, Social Worker
From CO:
Sheila Fenoff-Willett, Accounting Assistant
Matt Knisley, School Resource Officer
Mary Lundeen, Director of Support Services
Michael Martin, Director of Curriculum & Technology
Please join me in welcoming all of these future heroes to Montpelier Public Schools.
Continuing with the theme of celebration of heroes, we are now going to celebrate our nominees for the University of Vermont Teacher of the Year. I asked for colleagues to nominate a fellow teacher they felt was worthy of this distinction.
I am going to read the names of all nominated and ask that they remain on the stage so that we can celebrate them:
Michael Baginski, MSMS
Katy Chabot, MHS
Marie Jennings, UES
Amy Kimball, MSMS
Emmanuel Riby-Williams, UES
Anne Watson, MHS
At this time, and to help with the presentation, I would like to invite Mary Mello and Colleen Purcell to join me on stage. Mary and Colleen were our UVM Teachers of the Year last year – would you both please come up and join me?
Also to help with the presentation, I would ask that Pam Arnold and Adam Bunting please come to the stage.
When one walks into this particular room of Main Street Middle School, they are immediately captivated by the bright, colorful, engaging materials that tickle the brain into wanting to learn. The environment encourages both personal and academic growth and learning. This teacher has worked extremely hard over the past several years to expand the repertoire of instructional strategies to better meet the needs of today’s learners. As one colleague stated, “This teacher is always looking for ways to improve teaching. It is refreshing to see a veteran teacher acknowledge that things can always be better and one can still learn about teaching.” For this commitment to life-long learning and dedication to students, we are proud to celebrate Mike Baginski as one of our UVM Teachers of the Year!
Powerful teachers teeter on a difficult balance. Can the teacher challenge students while maintaining compassion and understanding? Can the teacher engage students in content but dedicate herself to the teaching of life long skill? Can the teacher see the individual while thinking about all kids? In one year of service to the students of Montpelier High School, this teacher has distinguished herself as just such a teacher. To observe one of this teacher’s classes is to see lessons that inspire engagement and curiosity. Students experience science while enjoying a classroom community that is playful, positive, and focused. In celebration of the intellectual curiosity that is cultivated on a regular basis, we are proud to celebrate Katy Chabot as the second UVM Teacher of the Year from Montpelier Public Schools!
Thank you all – and congratulations to Mike and Katy!
These are all our students – PK – 12. If you don’t believe me, I ask you to recall the words of Jean Commito at the End of Year Celebration this past June. For those of you who are new, Jean is a Math Teacher at the high school who retired after 16 years of dedication to the students of Montpelier High School. I cannot quote her directly but to paraphrase, Jean told all of us at the end of the year that the only reason Montpelier High School was able to earn the national accolades and acclaim it did was because of the tremendous education students were receiving at Union Elementary School and Main Street Middle School. In her words, the awards were earned because greatness was coming up to the high school! These are all our students – PK – 12; they are all Montpelier’s students.
And they all need heroes – heroes willing to fail, to ask for help, and to persevere on behalf of them. We need you – they need you – they need heroes and this auditorium is full of them.
In closing, I want to share something written by Ina J. Hughes on behalf of children. I used this at the first meeting in June of the new Administrative Team and just last week when the School Board and Admin Team met for our planning retreat. It speaks to what we do.
We accept and embrace responsibility for children who sneak popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, and who can never find their shoes
And we accept and embrace responsibility for children who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never “counted potatoes,” who were born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead, who never go to the circus, and who live in an X-rated world.
We accept and embrace responsibility for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we accept and embrace responsibility for those who never get dessert, who have no safe blankets to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can’t find any bread to steal, who don’t have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser, and whose monsters are real.
We accept and embrace responsibility for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums in the grocery store and who pick at their food, who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub, who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool, who squirm during worship and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.
And we accept and embrace responsibility for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren’t spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move but have no being.
We accept and embrace responsibility for children who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those who don’t get a second chance, for those we smother and for those who will grab the hand of anyone kind enough to offer it.
These are all Montpelier Public Schools children – and they all need a hero. You are our heroes – go and serve our students! Let’s have a great year in service to our students and each other! Thank you.
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