001we are live so hello and welcome i want to make sure um i'm saying your name as you'd like it to be said would you like me to call you dr pope or sonia which one is okay for you anyway it could be called okay so just because this is a conversation between you and i and we have um it looks like three viewers i'm just gonna call you sonia um just to continue the threat so thank you for joining the amherst pelham regional schools and the fort river community today for an opportunity to um talk about who you are and why you are the best person for our position so the staff and caregivers were given an opportunity to submit some questions for you and um in addition to the questions that they submitted
002you may also hear some from when you interviewed with us early uh last week i believe it was right last week right so you'll have an hour to answer 14 questions i threw in two more at the end so you know that's that that'll go by really quickly and if there's enough time and there's any questions submitted in the chat then i'll ask those questions too so are you ready for question number one go for it all right so sonya please tell us about yourself what roles responsibilities or experiences and licenses you may hold that helped you to prepare to be the next principal of fort river elementary school absolutely so i go way back um starting as a kindergarten teacher um which was one of the most powerful jobs that one can have in
003the field of education after the becoming a teacher in teaching kindergarten then first fifth grade middle school i went into becoming a guidance counselor um i wanted to link the needs of the students into counseling and i went that route um i did um my certification in guidance counselor as well and um then i work helping kids with social emotional needs um and then i was offered the position to work as the school principal for the holy community charter school in which i have been there for 16 years now is a love is is passion is dedication um it's making a difference um it's going home every day with the notion that you have touched somebody's life um that day and that you had made a difference in somebody's family um and that you know
004that they know that you care and that that for me has been the most powerful uh feeling in this profession um and so prior to that i did a program called upper bound which is a federal trio program in which i help i will say hundreds and hundreds of students achieve college been able to be the very first ones in their families to go on to college but not only get them to the step of going to college but to really make sure that they actually finish their four or fifth year because the vast majority of the first generation would take five years to finish college and so i was there even though it was not required i was there because i wanted to make sure that they will come back with that degree and
005to build up into what i do now many of those students are actually staff members in the school that i am directing so that family unit and that belief in that every child can succeed is coming back to our building and uh is making a difference in other little ones well thank you that is important and a great accomplishment on your behalf our school district holds many important values and initiatives including social justice project-based learning and arts integration it says the practical implementation of these can be challenging due to limited time and scheduling requirements so as principal how would you advocate for these initial initiatives and in your decision making and negotiating around scheduling and logistics that is quite the challenge and i have to say that that's one that i advocate for um in
006my current job i have a period that i call student life and so it's a period that other schools might call advising um that my called um leadership um but for me it's a period where i actually meet the students for who they are um what do they have a passion for and uh we developed that in different many ways and then we expand with after-school programs with the volunteers that will come and continue to help the kids so i have things as creative as kids who wanted to learn more about journalism um things um as baking because now you know we relay the baking with the mathematical skills and we built from there kids who love drama but as we are developing a drama a play for the school we actually learning how to
007write the reading comprehension behind that um and then negotiating about what kind of arguments do we want to bring in the drama um we have done things like jeopardy with again lots of vocabulary that they need to learn for their academics and so i have incorporated that into the school schedule i don't call it necessary uh recess um students that needs to go out and spend the energy there we'll spend the energy there but during that time we will have all of this going on at the same time to give an opportunity to others who wants to explore other areas and so that's how i have incorporated that into a very busy schedule as we know the department of vet gave us 180 days um then we have 160 plus strands that we must cover
008uh to be able to have the kids um at the level that they need to be at and also at the great um span that they need to be at but you have to be creative and i'm a firm believer that um if you meet the students and their desires and where they are they are happier and the learning happens a lot faster because they feel that they have a voice that they have something to look up for um and something that is making them become a leader in the school and this is something that i have done in a k-8 school it doesn't have to be a high school or middle school so in my kda school we do this um and we have plenty of leaders that are now able to help with
009the kind of of clubs that we do that will bring this other creativity into life well thank you so you know hearing what you're talking about how do you motivate and encourage your staff and can you please give specific examples of things you've done in the past yeah my leadership skill is one of being a servant um i believe in getting to know my staff members and to also know what are the type of things that make them feel valued it and make them feel that they are making a difference in the student's life and so that is something that if chosen i will definitely spend some time right away and getting to know the staff and getting to know um what are the things that they appreciate that they like to do um what
010are some of the areas that they feel that as a team uh we can work on an improvement um you know i'm always on the floor um i'm always talking to them i'm always in a lunch room i'm always everywhere around the school to ensure that i'm always on open door policy but i'm always right there at your reach because i also know that teachers have pac schedules and so a minute or two conversation um makes a big difference and they know that i am there for them and they know that i'm there to to listen to whatever it's um happening uh to them now let's talk about parents so can you talk about the role that you think parents guardians caregivers should play in the school and specify some of the best practices that
011you have used to help encourage that for me parents are the fours and no one knows the kids better than they do and they will be the ones who will be able to help me uh create a very strong and successful path for the children um they are my partners and my philosophy as a principal is that i am their best advocate it should never be that an advocate from outside should come to intervene between myself or this staff at the school i feel that if that happens i'm not doing my job um i feel that i have the tools to be able to work with the parents um and again to celebrate what is working well and uh to look at things that they feel that should be improved um very open to my
012parents um be you know open doors for them as well so i think that this is a powerful triangle is how i describe it the best where the child is on the top of that base of that triangle and that base is sustained by the parents and us as the school and if the three of us stay together that child will never slide on we'll always be successful thank you and so the next question knowing that there is a pandemic and students and staff are just returning to in-person instruction what is your vision for a fully thriving school committee a school committed to equity social justice and the social emotional well-being of students and staff absolutely so commissioner has already told us that we're going back and we're going back to normancy and we're going
013back with no mask um and so many schools will take some local decisions um which i will be eager to see what the main district um will do for our schools and amherst um but we also know like you said that um we have to be well equipped to receive the students um and for example for me i started on april 5th um and i had about 80 percent of the students coming back in person and i had another 20 that stay remote due to health constraints um in other family um but i do know that and i had experience with the ones that came on april 5th that we have a lot of social emotional work to do in the summer the plan was to continue to oh the plan is to continue to
014uh work with our counselors uh work with our families many of the students are in depression after losing family members after losing parents uh the grandparents our caregivers um going through the trauma that this pandemic left in our lives um and so you need to know that you must take care of that component before you can take care of anything else if we do not work in our social emotional and health needs and our mental health needs um we're not moving forward so that's the number one priority which will require for us to have a very solid plan um with guidance counselors with whoever is in their school setting to work with students equipped the teachers prior to opening the doors to the students for that full enormous year that commissioner expects us to have
015um and so every hand has to be in the deck and everyone has to roll the sleeves and work very hard to meet the students where they are there cannot be no judgment we just have to work with them and meet them where they are their needs are the priority and again without that they would not be successful academically thank you so this next question is going to be very familiar to you because this is one of the questions that you heard during the interview and it says at fort river we consider all groups to be critical stakeholders in our school how would you get input from groups that have not felt included in school decisions in the past absolutely so it's inclusion um i come from 36 years of experience working with a low-income
016uh community with a very well-diverse community um members um that have come from other school settings where they feel that they did not have a voice um and they have found a voice in our school setting um i'm the type of person that will meet in big groups i will meet in small groups i will meet individually i will meet the parent where they are um some parents um and even some teachers are more timid or they have not had the experience where they have felt well respected or valued um where they feel that their opinions um might not be accepted by others and so they intimidated to give you their opinions so i meet everyone where they are i can do again the large group the small groups and the individual meetings to ensure
017that i'm including everyone um because that's important i think that um even when i don't touch one family then i'm not doing my job it is important that i meet everyone um and that once more you know they they feel valued they feel respected they feel that we are one family and they feel that they are part of the process um and so i think that that is when you create that strong school culture it's when you build a strong family that is able to to talk about things that happen in a positive productive manner instead of pointing fingers if you will um and so at that school culture that it's important that's the environment that i have created across the years that i have been serving as school principal nice so tell us about
018your ideal discipline policy and how would you develop such a policy sure discipline is something that i always look in a positive way um i before i talk about child's discipline i need to know the child and i need to know where the child is coming from and i need to know what is not allowing that child to be in the classroom or to not get into discipline issues um after that then i can talk about discipline but i am the person that reverse negative behaviors into positive um and so how do i do that again i look at the child as a whole there's something in that child that is going to shine that is going to come up that he has an interest him or her as an interested and you just have
019to hold on to that and you have to build on that and i bet you for anything because i have seen it for this many years how that negative behavior switch into something positive because i have made a child part of the school and part of something that he or she is looking forward to come to every day at school and so now it's my partner it's the teacher's partner and um is a student leader and others sees like oh this used to happen with with my friend but now he or she is doing this um and so those are the things that i promote and discipline um i i don't believe on you know suspending for example that is the very last resource um i will work with that kiddo until i can no
020more and obviously we have to be realistic um sometimes we do have to do it um and it's a merit uh depending on the situation but i work hard to be proactive and not reactive and so i can just help to modify behaviors before they come an issue where we actually have to suspend and so that's the grassroots that i do when i'm learning the new community and when i arrived at my place back in 2006 boy did i confront issues i scratched my head and i said oh lord what did i get into but you know it took few months for me to really look at the kids and meet with this i was meeting with kids all the time um and they developed that respect for me and they developed that trust in
021me they knew that i was not there to judge them to criticize them to suspend them or to do anything i was there to help and so that's how i was able to reverse negative behaviors into positive ones thank you for that so can you tell us about a time when you had to make a decision that you knew would be unpopular what steps did you make uh did you take prior to making the decision and how did you handle the pushback if any yep um every principle goes through that um i think um that one of my unpopular decision was um when i had to work with my board of trustees and we had to expand the academic day um and so you know then we went from that a to uh 245 was
022no longer an option we were going to work from 8 to 4 30. well so that didn't sync well um and so how do i deal with that um i got all my teachers um and i says this is why we are doing this so i presented data data it's very important i said this is where the kids are this is where we must bring the kids and obviously in holyoke that was a major goal for us um it was my challenge as a school principal in holyoke um and so we the teachers were compassionate about it and although it was not the best uh thing to do for their schedule at the end they line up with the mission they line up with the goals we did it i only had few that left
023but the rest day with me as strong soldiers and we rolled our sleeves and we made it happen if you look at the statistics that is open um information public information you will see that we started very low back in 2006 but now 2020 you will see the students that they um went way beyond the sister schools in holyoke and they very close our state targets and that was the work and the decision that we made because we knew that our students needed that um and it took this group of professionals to you know breathe very hard and accept the decision walk the path with me and we're very proud of what we have now in 2021 congratulations on that at this point i'd like to stop and offer you an opportunity to get a
024drink of water because i know you've been speaking for about 25 minutes and you know it'll be good to just you know rehydrate thank you for doing that okay so the next question says please give us some examples of how you will connect with elementary age children at fort river to develop meaningful relationships with all of our students please demonstrate your knowledge of engagement with this age group of students when responding and we'd like two to three examples if that's possible absolutely elementary level is one of my passions like i said i started with kindergarten and um when i'm stressed out about whatever is happening in the job you will find me in a kindergarten class um because that's where the energy comes from that's where the passion comes from i'd like for my children
025to see me i know if you come to my building everyone knows who dr pope is um and the love that i received from my student it's amazing because once more they know that i'm there for them but what do i do i go and do some reading for the students in the elementary level um i do different projects with them um which that could be uh different creative uh projects um teachers will invite me to um a specific uh unit that they will be teaching um i do clubs myself as a school principal with my elementary level students so they know that the principal can do things with them that they will be you know one day they will be the principal at the school and i want them to have that vision um
026i talked to them about college kindergarten in our school are talking about what college they want to attend um so it's it's a bunch of things um that i do um whether that is going to paint with them whether that is reading for them whether that is teaching them a lesson in spanish one day um so they know the value of having two languages um or you know anything that the teacher um says dr paul can you come to our classroom to do this today um i dressed like a character um in in go to classrooms um we do characters uh day in our school and everybody comes dressed like whoever their favorite character is um i do different events to create the love for learning um and for the kids to feel at ease
027to feel that you know the principal is someone that they can come to as well there is uh no fear to come and share their feelings with dr pope so i hope that that answers your question thank you can you give us specific examples of action steps you have taken to implement restorative practices in your previous roles and if you don't have experience doing that how would you implement restorative practices at fort river absolutely so in our school we are like i said k to eight um and we do a lot of um restorative practices um with our students obviously in my current position i have a team of four different counselors in our school um which one of my counselors do the main work with it um but we do a little bit of
028pbis um other restorative practices or a lot of mediation um in our school what really has helped is to be able to do mediation um we do a a circle and we talk about what happened and what we could have done differently what went so bad that it got to the level that we are now meeting um and so the students get to talk about their feelings um and then construct a plan themselves on how we are going to be moving forward um for me it's very powerful that they have a full control of it because if they have the buy-in is going to happen um as the adult telling the students you're going to be doing this this and this and that and making a list for them that's not going to work but
029them doing their own work and committing to each other and by the end of the mediation meetings being able to look at each other's eye that's what it's powerful to do so we do a lot of the circles we do a lot of the mediations we do a lot of self-reflection sometimes before you get into the circle you have to do that self-reflection sometimes the kids are very upset and it is not productive to put them in the face of the other student so you have to do that work first and then you move through the scale um to be able there's different steps um and so kids have been very successful um i think that the grade that i work the most is the five and six um these are the stages with this
030hormonal uh changes are happening and so one day they want to be old in another day they want to be little um and so you have to work with that roller coaster and and make sure that they understand is normal but how we deal with our emotions is very important and how we treat one another is very important one of the elements where i get more involved is when there is some sort of uh racial comments and or someone has been offended um due to their cultural values or or whatever case might be so that's when dr paul comes in into that conversation because then we need to do more intense work as to learning about the differences between one another the values um and the importance of respecting one another and sometimes i have
031told the kids we might not be friends we don't have to all be friends but we must respect each other because that's the school culture that we have here and dr pope is not going to allow anyone to disrespect one another and that's very clear and um it's written in stone in every wall that we do i have a very visual building in regards to our diversity and we in regards to our inclusion um and you know that diversity it's it's it's about culture it's about uh racial it's about religion it's about equality it's about gender is is is about many things and so we teach our kids about that um so they all know that it's very important to respect one another thank you the next question is also one that you have heard
032in your interview and it says at fort river three district-wide programs caminantes are you a language spanish english program aims a specialized program for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder building blocks a specialized therapeutic program for students with emotional disabilities who need specific social emotional and behavior supports could you please discuss your experience with each of these populations and your experience working with specialized program students absolutely so as i mentioned in the uh previous interview i have a school where i'm actually teaching spanish from kindergarten all the way to eighth grade i am a firm believer of language um i believe that if we start them early they will develop a second language which is very important nowadays um i gave the example that my eighth graders for example leave our building to
033go on to high school and they take the 12th grade exam and they pass that exam and they don't have to sit down for the language requirement they get the grade that's a very big plus for our students because they're not that time they have used to take classes in the community colleges which accelerates them when they go on to college as well um i took the time to look at the work that uh dr morris put together when he was looking at areas of work in the amherst schools and he identified the socio-economical balance the specialized special ed programs improvements what could we better do to continue to help the students and the families um he looked at declining enrollment um which i saw that four river was one of the schools that got
034the hit um with 279 um students difference and between the enrollment between one school and the other um the preschool access for family that is very important and then the dual language um and how he feel that the do let dual language uh can be very beneficial to our communities obviously the amherst community has changed across the years i have been here for 36 years now i have been a resident of amherst for that many years but i decided to i go to holyoke where i felt that i was needed but it's very exciting to see that this dual language is going to fall river um that we are looking into expanding this and to be able to help the students with those two languages spanish and in english so i'm very excited to see
035that um i have to say that i just went through an audit for my elo program and um it was a very good audit we had one finding and that was that we needed to tweak our curriculum um to match a little bit more the standards um and because i have a limitation with our service curriculum i had to negotiate that um we got the um the condition in march of 2020 before we close with this pandemic that was so crazy and by may of this year the condition was completely removed um and so we had a perfect audit in the ell department and to you know um give kudos to my team um now we have been asked to uh do workshops for the department of ed and put our best practices out there
036so ell dual language is a it is a passion of mine and i know that if chosen i will roll my sleeve and make sure that things are going well in that area we also had aims and building blocks aims for mathematics correct oh you mute it we have aims um which is the specialized program for students who have high functioning autism spectrum disorder i see a special ed component special ed is another area that i am very strong and um very compassionate about like i said before i have never had an advocate in my school um because i am the advocate for the parents um so once more if i get to know the kid and uh their needs um i know what i'm looking for on my special ed meetings and um what
037my parents might be looking for and be the voice for the parents um and coming to the table to discuss uh what can be provided and what will be um the best um uh placement for uh the student um and so you know i have gone from you know high needs uh students to moderate to full inclusion to partial inclusion um and um being able to work with each one of the areas of autism communication developmental delays which i i do work a great deal with developmental delays um social emotional like we have been discussing um health intellectual needs neurological issues um and those are the areas that i had attacked within our special education program um in there and that is public uh information as well we did have an impeccable audit in our
038school and the survey from the parents um to the department of ed that is something that we need to do on a on a yearly basis have been positive um because again i feel that um if the parents don't feel that that something has been done for the betterment of the child then i didn't do my job and i take that personally i want to make sure that parents understand these issues that parents would be able to share with me what they looking and how we can get there together um and or how you know where we can find the services thank you so another one that you should be familiar with is coming this is the dual language program at fort river you touched on this uh how will you support the mission staff
039families and curriculum of this program and serve as an ambassador in the larger community i think i will be a very passionate ambassador for the program as i mentioned before i'm a firm believer of it um you have two of my staff members already in the program who left the school and when they heard that amherst is doing this um and they can attest to the kind of work that i do around uh dual language um once more i will roll my sleeve see what has been done uh what is working well um what can we how can we move it forward um i'm not the type of person that becomes complacent even if things are working i always like to look for another goal and um see what else can we do to strive
040how are we going to show the world that amherst district has the best dual language in the in the state of massachusetts or even further than that thank you so what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion love and unity into fort river at the student level the staff level and for the whole school that's nothing but my own professional philosophy where i describe that powerful triangle when i will always keep that child on the top and that base is held by parents and school we must be a team we must be a family we must believe in our values and we must believe in what we do we must resolve any differences as they arise we must work on anything that we feel that is not working um
041because once more if and i give i work with the kids first if my kids are happy i'm going to have happy parents because every parents love to see their child succeed and happy to come to school every day and then my teachers are part of that equation um i always again i'm always walking around the school to ensure where can i best support you what can i do for you next um what is your best practice how can we place your best practices for others um it is us sharing all the time it is never um you know miss smith is doing a better job than ms hopkins over here it is oh this really worked for mrs miss what about if we implement some of this in your class as well how would
042you see that um it's always collaborative um and making sure that at the end of the day we have one mission just one and that is to ensure that our students are successful that's the key element for me because if that happens my other constituents will be happy as well thank you so here's a different kind of question it says what is something you have done that you are especially proud of and it does not have to be work related miss cunningham everything that i know it's um it's work um i really believe um in rolling my sleeves and and doing everything within my power never becoming complacent and i value family and um if i value family i want to bring that spirit with me and i make my teachers the feel that powerful
043feeling of being a family and um and i do it with my students um and my parents and so in reality it's it's me with my family it's me with my school family okay so you've answered the questions that were sent in and the questions that i had added but this is one that um i thought about as as i'm listening to you talk right about who you are and everything that makes you you and from the heart i want to know why should we hire you to be the next principal i think i should be hired because i bring passion i bring commitment i bring dedication my my material sense to the district shows that i am one that spends at least 10 years um with the institution that i come into uh to
044work for i want to leave a legacy i want to leave something concrete i want to leave something that someone can pick up and continue to go um and not be afraid that something is going to collapse i like to build things that are strong and you know everyone who knows me they always says that my passion is contagious and so that's what i bring the most i bring the love for education um my children are everything for me um i i love children i i love to see them learning um and so again it's a passion um it's something that i i will never see myself stop doing um i don't even see myself retiring because i see i i'm not going to know what i'm going to be doing with myself if i'm
045not in a classroom if i'm not in a school um so that's what i bring i i bring commitment i bring loyalty i bring dedication and i bring this major passion for kids and thank you for that answer and i would normally ask you is there anything else that you'd like the audience to know we have about people viewing this and others can go back and watch it later but is there anything you'd like them to know outside of the questions that i've asked already no i want to thank everyone for watching those who are with us um i want to thank the publicly the committee for the wonderful job that they did in interviewing i feel the questions uh were a reflection of what amherst is um and want to be um so again
046i am a resident of amherst um i think is my turn to bring the passion to our schools here and i'm ready to do so um and uh um you know please know that i am committed in that uh i'm a hard-working person well thank you for joining us today dr pope to talk about your experiences and what makes you you and why that's going to be a tremendous asset to the fort river family and community so we thank all who are watching tonight also and we will continue with the um the forums tomorrow and everyone you take care and dr pope you can hold on as i end the broadcast sure