ARMS Principal Forums #2

001um okay good morning and welcome to the second of three community forums to meet finalists for the amherst regional middle school principal position i am doreen cunningham the assistant superintendent of diversity equity and human resources this virtual platform that you are viewing from youtube has a chat feature where you are able to submit questions for candidate response questions were also submitted via email we will get to as many as possible during the allotted time we ask that communication via chat follow the norms that we would follow if we were in person meaning we will use appropriate language and be respectful with our communication also this is a reminder that the sessions are being videotaped each candidate will begin by giving a brief file and sharing why they believe that they are the best candidate for

002this position and why they are interested in amherst schools we begin today with mr jason heineck mr heineck please tell us about yourself and why you believe that you are the best candidate for this position and why amherst schools well first let me say good morning to everybody and thank you for taking part in this and we know these are trying times right now so the fact that there are people on here willing to ask questions willing to watch that are invested uh in making sure the amherst public schools specifically amherst regional middle school are the absolute best i just want to say thank you for that and i also want to start by saying that i do believe that i am the best candidate for this job based upon my experience and my love

003for the town of amherst uh i actually started off as a special education teacher at an alternative school in springfield and so i've been working with students that have always had difficulties i've been working with students who have struggled with um their upbringing who have struggled with mental health who have lived in generational poverty uh and i've been working with students who have not had a voice in the community and so for me bringing out that voice and inspiring students to believe in themselves and inspiring students to believe in the world around them and to take part in the world around them are some of the core beliefs that that i have my experience also as a leader in the city of springfield and my current position my my job has always been as i

004said to instill that hope and belief i've been able to lead schools through change that is kind of what i have specialized in is turn around school work but the biggest most rewarding uh position that i've held was when i was the principal at chestnut middle school i was able to start that school from scratch and thinking about how we can make a direct translation or correlation between what's going on now in our world and how schools could look so different when we come out of this uh i have that experience of starting schools and redesigning schools and really the core comes down to is that i believe that as a team we can solve all of our problems and i try to inspire those that are on the team from students teachers community members

005to really take part in what they're doing and love what they're doing and then grow that into a solid foundation of education for our children students and the students that are watching this now the other thing is that i absolutely love the town of amherst when you think of a town that for me is always on the forefront of thought that there's so much potential so much uh hope with all the colleges around i have i've gone to umass i loved every second of my time at umass i continued to live in amherst after i was done at umass i've lived in south amherst i've lived in north amherst i've worked in amherst uh for me every time i am i am in amherst i just get this overwhelming sense of community this sense that

006everybody is willing to reach out and help if you need it and that's a place where i want to be because that's how i am and i want everybody to feel that sense of community that sense of civic belonging and i want students to grow that sense and i want them to be involved in the community and i want them to set goals that they wouldn't normally have for themselves so my experience as a principal leading change my experience as a principal changing uh school cultures and inspiring students who have been marginalized and focusing on populations that have been underserved my role having been a teacher i understand what what teachers go through and how to help teachers uh work their best to give the students what they need and then again my just love

007for the town of amherst and antonio's pizza so just to throw that out there thank you what do you like about middle school students that's a great question because again that is where i found that you know i believe that i was put on this planet to be a principal that is my goal in life that is the job that i love the absolute most i can wake up every morning with this renewed sense of vigor every single day because i am going in to change students lives to inspire them to be their best and what i love most about middle school students is that they are at that age where they you can literally watch their futures being shaped in front of you if you do things for them and you believe in them

008and you build strong relationships with them as students uh and people then they will reach out and do amazing things so that age where people are like excuse me why would you want to be a middle school principal those are the toughest ages because students are finding themselves finding who they are that for me is where i want to be i want to be in a position that i can help guide a student's future i can help give them hope specifically if they've not had hope that there's a future for them i can make sure that if you are one of the top students and you want to be one of the top students that i can push you in a direction uh that you believe that you will not make excuses for anything in

009your life that you will never give up that you will always be productive accountable and kind uh the core values that i have but the middle school students i absolutely love i can build the best relationships with all students but middle school students i always have gravitated towards i love working with them and i love that there is just so much raw potential in middle school i can build skills that the middle school students need for the rest of their lives and for me that is that is the key i also believe that having just about every future potential resident of the town of amherst in one building at one time i want them to get that sense of civic responsibility that sense of community involvement and then that sense that i have higher goals

010and high expectations for myself i want to go to college and then when i get back from college i will live and prosper in the town that i grew up in and that happens and you bring students back to a town with different skills and qualities they can start businesses and so really it's just that middle school is where it starts is where you become your own person and i love being able to shape that so my experience is being a middle school principal i am currently a 7th through twelve principle uh and just my absolute love and just undying determination to make every student feel that sense of civic responsibility and giving them goals uh and you can watch that become a change or part of someone's life it is instilling that hope that

011you can do whatever you want and that's why i love middle school students thank you if you are chosen to become the next principal of the middle school how will you support students with mental health disorders well i think that comes back down to again my background right i was a special education teacher in an alternative school and i was working with students who struggled with the most behavioral issues in a self-contained classroom so it was me seven to ten students every day uh and one teacher's aide and many of the times what i was having to say about the math was not as important as what was taking place in that life so my core belief is building relationships that that's what makes me who i am and so with those relationships that i'm

012able to build students like to open up students feel safe students feel comfortable and that's the environment that i like to create throughout the school i believe in the phrase all means all no excuses and so that means that no matter what is taking place in your life i am going to be there to work with you no matter what no matter how upset you were with me for something or a teacher for something no matter what's going on every single day i am going to be there fresh to help you become your best and so supporting mental health starts with building that relationship so the teachers also can build that relationship and understand that not academics is always not the most important thing taking place and are there safe learning environments so does that

013mean that you as a student who struggles with mental health feel comfortable talking to someone are there people that are similar to you that struggle with you that we can have a club with i think that's incredibly important is to group yourselves with people who struggle like you uh and if you do struggle finding that that that person that you can confide in and say what is going on so that core belief i have that number one belief that relationship building is the key to reaching a child is really how i support mental health i also believe firmly in restorative practice and i also believe firmly in pbis so positive behavior interventions and supports so you're going to find for me as a leader that i'm going to make sure that our teachers are treating

014you positively that we are rewarding you when you're doing the right thing not calling you out when you're doing something wrong but always being positive and creating an environment for you to feel successful and for me as a principal my door is always open i'm actually rarely in my office i am a principal who is out and about all the time i am in the classrooms i am at the lunches i am with the students as much as i can so i can be there to support if you're not feeling it in a class i'll take you for a walk i'll listen to you if you're having trouble at home i can sit with you and help you call your parent to think through the issues that you have if you say you know my

015parents don't listen or my parents don't hear me and same for parents i can try to work with you to make your child the best and that kind of relationship as the forefront of what we do and build at a middle school is really key to supporting students mental health and again and if a mistake is made we fix it uh begin i believe firmly in restorative practice that the rebuilding of the relationship is needed not a punishment that's punitive thank you how will you close the equity gap for students in the middle school that's a very good question and that is something that i have dedicated my life to as a principal in the city of springfield and urban center the equity gap and the achievement gap went hand in hand and so for

016me putting myself in a position to help the students who need it the most is what i i do that is where i feel the most comfortable and that is where i always gravitate towards so by able being able to close that gap is more than just you know talking about it i think the biggest way i've been able to close that gap and i've had experience closing that gap and the numbers at previous schools that have shown that gap to close is because first we have to believe in that relationship once we create that relationship with the student students can do absolutely anything if they believe that you believe in them and the second way the best way to reach that the best behavior management tool is a well-structured engaging lesson so are the

017teachers planning lessons that the students want to be part of are they planning for the students who struggle are they planning for the students who are at the top and then the last way to kind of make sure that the conditions are right to close that gap or to promote the equity is to make sure that um the only way to know a child has learned anything is to watch them teach it to someone else so if you can put those three conditions in place this core relationship belief that everybody has that we're there for you no matter what this kind of idea that we are going to spend our time planning we are going to spend our time effectively planning uh for all of our students and then we are going to make sure

018that students are showing what they know not just to the teacher not just on paper but to their other students once we get those safe learning environment conditions in place we talk about having high expectations when we have high expectations for students it means we don't give up and we don't stop until they reach those expectations and then no matter how far we have to plan backwards no matter how far we have to scaffold down that's when we get to this core place where we can say i'm reaching this student where they are and i'm setting and giving them feedback to get where they want to be once you have that feedback loop now in there and students are actually getting feedback beyond just grades beyond say you know you got a 60 on this

019if you give a failing student a 60 it doesn't tell them anything as to what they actually can do well and it look they feel and look as if they are a failure if you tell them that they need to cite better evidence from the text or that they missed the concept of theme here and if they went back and tried to rewrite this sentence specifically talking about theme then they have an actionable plan that they can do to improve their skill and so trying to always make sure students are getting feedback that is actionable and specific to their needs and praising them when they are doing the right thing that's how we start to move the achievement gap and promote equity because if you're planning for all students then all students will be moving

020in the right direction specifically if you have that relationship with them and so you're going back to my other experience uh at chestnut middle school when i started at chestnut middle school there's the student growth percentile sgp um we started with an average of 24. that meant that the students across the state who had the same score as the students are building were doing better than our students essentially uh and so that because you came to chestnut then that means you weren't doing as good as the person across the state and by the end of that time that sixth grade group we took their sgp all the way to 73. that meant that they were doing better than 73 of the students in the state that had the same score as them so what those

021conditions that we put in this just belief that we can do this that we're going to create safe learning environments this kind of focus on our planning are we planning from data am i as the principal prioritizing teacher professional development and helping and coaching teachers uh once we have that in place uh do teachers feel safe to take risks so do we have safe relationships for students do we have safe relationships with our teachers and then finally do the teachers know what to do and the students know what to do based upon the feedback that we're giving them and then just undying will to want to be successful if you get a community behind that effort and you have a community supporting that effort you will be successful so again just to bring it all

022back together uh the best way to promote equity and close that achievement gap uh is to make sure we have strong relationships with students to make sure we're prioritizing our planning and our teacher professional development and then to again have that all means all no excuses attitude that we are going to do this no matter what and that comes from the community and the team that is working just to help those students thank you your response touched on several questions that were submitted but i will ask the questions anyway the next question says what is your plan of action to ensure that english language learners and students with special needs make significant progress again i'm going to go back to my background as a special education teacher and the way that i always think about

023planning and how to address those gaps is i use the phrase what gets measured gets improved so first would be to analyze what is actually taking place and look at the data that we have once we see that data we as teachers can say here is a reasonable goal that we want to move this student to not only that we have to communicate that to teachers and parents and once we see that goal and the student sees that goal it becomes tangible and if we're providing feedback on a daily basis towards reaching that goal if our planning is saying all right i need to scaffold for this student down to this level or i need to scaffold for this student up to this level or i need to provide accommodations or modifications then we will

024work to move that group but it starts with identifying that group and being aware of the data for that group and then planning from the data for that group my schools that i have been part of in the city of springfield have had the majority of the population be english language learners i started an english language learner academy at the high school of commerce specifically for our english language learner students so the ones who were level ones level twos first year language uh speakers they had a separate supportive academy that they would do for some of their core content classes and then for the electives they would be back in the regular um student areas i i mean with the students and students classrooms but they would have support we hired additional paraprofessionals so really

025we created this community that we wanted students that struggled with language to be able to support each other we wanted to have teachers that specialized in supporting those students um to help them and we did the same thing when we went to chestnut we we prioritized our english language learners because at chestnut uh 97 of the students um were um at one point in their lives not english language learner speakers or the primary language was not english at home and that's a very incredibly high percentage uh and so again immersing myself in the culture is key to making sure that you are moving students that are minorities that you are moving students that are non-english language speakers that you are moving students that are struggling with special education or have special disabilities that that prevent

026them from accessing or learning like regular regular students but going all the way back to that original concept of do we know who these students are do we know what their needs are specifically and does that student believe that we have their best interest in mind through that relationship that we have built with them and if we have these conditions and if we don't stop our planning and we are always working to move that population and we are consistently checking in with our progress uh inviting students parents in to talk about progress so a progress report isn't just something you're receiving on paper it's a face-to-face interaction that you're having uh if we have those conditions in place we're monitoring what's taking place we're giving the teachers the development that they need to be able

027to work with a different population or to focus on english language learners uh the the students have been able to succeed and i have shown success at my previous schools in changing the um achievement gap and shrinking that gap between ell students and sped students at my schools because again i have them at my heart um because that's where i started uh and so that's that's kind of the way i would summarize how i would do that thank you with change in administration comes changes in policy procedures and methodologies how would you or how do you plan to streamline existing systems and utilize staff feedback when implementing new initiatives that's another great question and i'll start with again my experience is that this is what i have done i have come into environments that have

028been either told by the state that there's going to be change that's mandated uh or have gone to a point where change is going to be coming and so as i walk in as a new leader the first thing that i do which is kind of a core uh strength of mine is i listen i listen to what's going on i can't make any decisions and i can't have what's in the best interest of everybody if i don't hear what is taking place and people don't believe that i am listening to them so i always want to make sure that people understand and can i can that i'm there to listen and that's the first thing that i will always do is listen and once i listen i can then start to formulate a plan

029but i don't create plans myself in any school that i have been to because if a plan comes from the top down there are likely people who do not buy into it and then they do not implement it or they do not implement it to their best so the whole core to my leadership philosophy is that i am a team builder and i start with building the team so if we are going to streamline policies and processes i am going to ask teachers to be part of that team and i have a phrase that i use is that i want to lead myself out of a job i want if i am not there everything to be able to function and continue because the teachers and students are part of the decision making so i

030every school i go to i form what i call a teacher leadership team and it's a group of teachers that makes the decisions for the school and i'm just a member of that team and so i try to build consensus from the ground up i listen to what people have to say i bring colleagues in teachers other administrators and put them at the table and then we work together to determine what is best for the school i also always have to include students in that discussion because without students i am nobody i am not a principal if there are no students in that school and so students voice is so important and making sure that what we're doing is helping them in the long run uh and so i always try to bring people together

031that again is first and foremost i make decisions based upon input uh and then i make decisions based upon team consensus and i try and strive to build that as a principal i uh not having been a teacher i was actually a union representative for teachers when i was a teacher as well i understand the struggle that teachers have and i understand the struggle that students have and i want to make sure that they work together and are at the table to make the decisions that are necessary and then i also make sure that we have a school council where the community and parents are part of that decision decision-making body so i don't am not a top-down guy i am a consensus building individual and i like to make sure that every voice that

032i possibly can find is heard and then represented in the decisions that are made and i have the experience to do that in leading schools from designing a school from scratch uh to leading schools through state mandated change with lots of turnover uh and lots of change and leadership for years and years and my goal is always to stabilize to build teams to prioritize and find student leaders teacher leaders that can then continue to be the voice and so that's kind of my approach i listen first then i build consensus and i invite teachers to be part of the decision making team students and community members so that's how i would plan to make change streamline policies uh even at my current school uh one of the biggest changes that i made coming in uh

033we changed the schedule and then i also created a separate middle school the grades 7 through 12 were all interdispersed throughout the building and we created a separate middle school with dedicated middle school teachers uh to focus just on middle school students and the changes that came from that uh just allowed the school to start to grow into a new direction where we prioritize our middle school and we're prioritizing our high school and it's not all intertwined and interdispersed so by creating these smaller communities we were able to make big changes but that's just an example of how i've come into positions with my experience and led them through change i've done that by listening and i've done that by building consensus with the stakeholders thank you what is your experience with performing arts departments

034and what vision do you have for the role of performing arts in the middle school that's an amazing question because for me watching a student who has never picked up an instrument or ever considered themselves an artist uh when i get to watch them perform or when i get to watch them display something and i can see that i've never done this before and now i'm doing it and i feel confidence that is when i will just i can't hold it together i will cry because that is one of the absolute most proud moments that i have experience doing this at chestnut middle school we did not have a music program we had a music class we turned that program into a full music program we partnered with a community music organization that were able

035to provide instruments for every single student in the music program we hired teachers that had experience in music and i prioritized that because again if i believe that relationship building is the best way to reach a child i also believe that not every child will be reached by a core content teacher so being able to express yourself outside of a math english socialize or science class is the key to building that well-rounded person that i talked about at the beginning of this time and so i always push arts i always push performance if there's a blank space on a wall i will tell the art teacher fill it display something on it i will tell the music teacher you can go and perform at a soccer game if you want to go and perform at

036the high school i'll coordinate with the high school to have you perform i always want students to be in a position to show what they know that goes back to that core belief i have the only way to truly know a child is learn something is to watch them teach it or show it to someone else and then students then can find who they are at that middle school level so arts music clubs electives uh are so important to the student experience it cannot just be math english social studies and science and another example me as a myself as a leader i always try to give professional development to my elective teachers on how to incorporate core content standards into what you're doing if i'm a music teacher and i'm going to have students compare

037and contrast two different genres of music i might look to an ela standard on writing an argumentative essay and so i can then make sure that as a elective teacher i am supporting core content instruction and standards and my knowledge of those standards for ela as a core content teacher will only help the school improve as another condition for effective and promoting equity and closing that achievement gap that's something that i've done at chestnut middle school i've actually converted a lot of elective teachers to what i would call core content teachers because i would have them use ela standards as the standard or a science standard if we were talking about a stem classroom to make sure that they are helping core content teachers because if we want to promote equity to ensure that all

038students have access to everything that they all have access to the same high expectations same learning then all teachers need to be working off of what everybody what the core content teachers are doing as well to support because once we have that community of support right and once because again the state judges us uh on our mcas scores on our um you know attendance suspensions if we're all working together to focus on those goals that we set as a team then we will understand and get to that final point so to summarize i have experience and i am passionate about promoting the arts uh and then again i have that experience of of putting art programs in place that are sustainable and helping teachers who are in those programs help core content teachers and build

039that community we're all working towards the same goals thank you if we have a period of time next year when we have to rotate between in-person and online instruction what will you do to ensure students are engaged in their learning and how do you ensure that their social emotional well-being is being addressed i can go back to a personal experience uh on march 13th very similar to um amherst public schools my current school we made the decision before the governor announced the closure that we were going to close for two weeks and when we made that decision i pulled all the staff at the end of the day and i said we are going to plan from here on out as if we are not coming back and our priorities are student engagement and well-being

040and so we use those relationships that we have we use that concept of none of this is the student's fault that everything we are going to do from here on out is to build our relationship with that student to maintain contact with that student and to support that student no matter what work actually became secondary for us it was how can we put ourselves in a position to have weekly or daily contact with our students while they are gone so they feel that we are still part of their lives on a daily basis the next monday and tuesday excuse me the 16th and 17th of march i actually brought in my middle school student my teachers and my high school teachers we did professional development on google classroom and we planned a monthly calendar for

041the students and parents to know that at this day on this time we were posting work to google classroom and this is the schedule and we also created a schedule of online office hours and that schedule of online office hours was monday through friday so every day a teacher was going live on the computer to check in we got stu we created a form that parents filled out a survey if they needed technology we got as much technology as we possibly could in the hands of families who needed it to ensure that students were able to access things we worked to build packets of work for the students that weren't and we assigned teachers to consistently check in with those students so i feel that we were ahead of the curve because we thought from

042day one that this happened that our priority is supporting social emotional well-being of our students and families and maintaining that relationship and that contact with them and then we would get to the work once we felt that the student was in a position that they understood what was going on they felt supported in how to do the work and then they could actually access the work and so that is the experience that i have had and i've been leading staff and students through this pandemic as we speak my communication to parents i i'm communicating with parents daily i have sent out facebook live messages uh since the beginning of this pandemic talking to parents about how to become a teacher uh and and that struggle that we go through of i have a different relationship

043at home with my child because i am not the teacher so when i ask my student to do something and they say no i then go back into parent mode and it could be a conflict and so i really wanted to make sure that we were supporting our students and families first making sure they were had the technology they needed making sure they were fed um and so those were priorities right off the bat and they will always continue to be so going back to this if this happens again in the fall uh we're i'm going to be prepared for it and again the way i'm going to do that is by just giving you kind of gave you an example of what we've done at my school now in order to support that movement

044to online education now i have teachers that go live twice a day and we're actually providing you know as best of instruction as we can we have a gigantic sheet that teachers keep track of who they've had contact with from the week our advisory teachers reach out no matter what once a week so again i've prioritized that relationship and that contact as the number one aspects of this pandemic and that's how we're supporting mental health i have a stat team student teacher assistant team that we meet weekly where we funnel all the emails from teachers who get things from students that say i'm struggling i'm having a hard time i want to quit and then we prioritize how we as a support adjustment counselors guidance counselors nurses our paraprofessionals are reaching out to support those

045students so again my experience in leading through this uh has been we've tried to stay ahead of the curve we've been consistent with our expectations and that no one will be hurt through this process because it is not students fault and so again preparing for that uh on a side note i'm also a master scheduler i'm creating conditions where this can happen uh is key to like the core of what i do and so being able to plan for this being able to plan if we only can come back with 10 students per classroom do we have seventh graders on one day eighth graders on another day um where will we put them how will we transition um what will it look like do we take temperature at the door um all of these things

046are things that i'm currently thinking about and planning for next year at the school that i am in so my experience in doing this uh the kind of the philosophy that i just explained that we always prioritize that relationship and that support as the first thing during this pandemic i think it is exactly what i would continue to do and i would be doing it at uh amherst uh with a different team but that team was the key to all of this so there you go thank you what are your fundamental beliefs as to what instruction should look like at the middle school level so i'll go back to those three core beliefs that i stated about myself number one relationship building is the only way to reach a child number two the best behavior

047management tool is a well-structured engaging lesson and number three the only way to know a child has learned anything is to watch them teach it to someone else if we create those conditions we then create a safe learning environment where students want to take risks and when i walk into a classroom that i see a teacher as a coach and i see students doing the majority of work i know that really good things are happening and so we think about what that looks like right if this is a math class is is there focus or do we know where we're going do we know what standards we're working on as a student do i know why i am doing this is there coherence uh that means that is what i'm doing building upon the previous

048day is what i'm doing part of our future lesson so i as a teacher can tell a student you need this because next we're going to this and then can i always come back to this concept of rigor do i understand that i need to help students just yes understand how to do the math but do i also help the students understand why they're doing the math and why they're choosing the processes that they are and can i make sure that they're spending that amount of time on real world application so are the problems that i'm giving the students getting them back into thinking about the real world and thinking about math in the world around them and then if i go into a literacy classroom and i think of all other classrooms besides math

049as literacy because they can be text focused so is that text that we're using in that class complex can you make multiple meanings from that text that text is that text above skill level and or is that text tailored right to where that ell student needs it to be or that special ed student needs it to be so they can be part of the same thing that everybody else is doing is it all about getting back to that concept of evidence am i citing evidence from the text am i supporting my beliefs with evidence from what i've learned and then am i building knowledge and are the teachers ensuring that students are building knowledge over time so to summarize when i walk into a classroom if i can see conditions for a safe learning environment

050if i can see conditions of effective planning and i can see students doing the majority of the thinking in class then i know really strong instruction is taking place and if i also see writing writing for me is what it shows thinking there's the old um you know think pair share i like to change that and call it think right hair share because if i can get a student to write their ideas and thoughts before they begin to discuss them a student who doesn't like speaking in class a student doesn't like turning and talking to someone next to them they already have their thoughts planned out and then it's much easier for them to feel confident turning and talking or raising their hand and asking to talk to the teacher so again if i see

051those conditions if i see them in place i see that relationship and that teacher as a coach i see the positivity in the classroom then i know really strong instruction is taking place so as a principal i like to make sure that my staff is that's where we we spend our time on professional development and learning to make sure that those conditions are present and how to uh build upon them once we get them thank you what is your view about discipline in the middle school and in your response please include issues such as cell phone use hallway norms and expectations around kindness okay my view on discipline again comes back to restorative justice restorative practice and pbis if there's a student in class that is on a cell phone the first thing i will

052ask teachers to do or i will train teachers to do or things that really good teachers will do is they will not call that student out but they might say something along the lines of i'm really glad that so and so and so has their cell phones away because this was a time where we're not having cell phones out and i thank you for that and then hopefully that student will understand that we are not calling them out that we are putting them in a place where they can hear that is the expectation and they can put the cell phone away now having a really strong cell phone policy i think is key to the cell phone problem that can exist in schools i have experience creating a new cell phone policy at my current

053school where we essentially almost eliminated the problem because it was very clear what the consequences were it was very clear that what happened in each classroom would be the same throughout the building and so once we created that consistency and described it to students and held students accountable to that that is when we kind of every student understood that cell phones were not something that we're going to be on when it is not time to be on them in a classroom and so the cell phone policy i think is always key and if the policy doesn't articulate exactly what the expectations are that would be one thing that i would reach out and try to change right away and then i can also tell you another thing about the hallway norms so after listening when

054i came to my current position hallways were a problem once we created a different middle school academy again for our seventh and eighth grade students we actually started the year by having all students transition in lines from class to class i actually made room movements so that all core content classes at the middle school for that team were next to each other so i created conditions that made it favorable for students to get to class on time so students would line up in one class they'd walk out in a line the teacher would be greeting them at the door for their next class the teacher would welcome them to class let them in a few at a time give them the instructions in the hallway and then move students into class and when we started

055the year like that first the teachers noticed right off the bat behavior in hallways was non-existent students were not getting in trouble students were not spending time hiding in bathrooms students were not where they weren't supposed to be and the biggest positive change was that was that bullying or students getting in trouble was almost eliminated in the hallway students were getting the class on time now if you're a student and you're sitting here listening to me right now you say walking in lines as seventh and eighth graders well we started that way and then once the expectation was established that we get to where we go on time and we had that high expectation we relaxed that so then teachers were letting students go on their own to their next class and just standing at

056their door but we could always pull back if we noticed that things weren't going the way we needed to we could always pull back to that so that was an example of how we made a change at a school to kind of take back if you will the hallways and then after students understood the expectation they were following it consistently we said hey eighth graders you no longer have to walk in lines being escorted and that was great and then we didn't have issues but if we did we could go back to it and same with seventh grade seventh graders showed that they could make it from place to place on time responsible um respectful uh and kind to each other and once they were able to be able to pull back so that was

057an example uh and so my my kind of best way to say that how do we ensure cell phone usage stops is to have a really strong cell phone policy and consistency from classroom to classroom and consistency in the accountability of that policy to stop hallway norms again uh having coming from pbis and restorative practice actually posting in the hallway what the norms are is key so students understand them and if they're not following those norms to put in conditions or put things in place that we as adults are monitoring those hallways very tightly and we are using our our ability to transition students as key to getting them to the next class on time and prepared and then kindness kindness is the core if you're building relationships with students that they believe in you

058and you're expressing that always be kind uh that that no excuses there's no excuse for hurting somebody there's no excuse for making fun of somebody uh and if you believe that that kindness and you're modeling that as a leader i am out there modeling all the time if you're doing that students will follow it and if you're always upbeat like i am if you're always positive with the students they're less likely to want to do something that's going to change that feeling that they have and if they do we're going to restore it we're going to say this is what you did this is what hurt and this is how we can make it better because it doesn't make you who you are one mistake so to kind of summarize again stopping cell phones is

059about having consistency in the implementation of the policy and then making sure that all teachers are doing the same thing and that all students understand and are working together on it hallway norms i've given you an example of an of a way to stop um students from not getting to places on time logistically making moves with teachers to to kind of support quick transitions from place to place and then again for me being present i'm in all transitions all the time all the hallways i try to get to and if i'm not there i know every one of my teachers is on their front lawn as i call it greeting students when they come to their house and then making sure that we're kind that stems from that core belief that i have of relationship

060building so that's how i would ensure that hallways are strong that we think of the hallways as just a time to get from point a to point b uh and then when we get to point b we are ready to go and so that's kind of how i would how i would do that thank you what is your vision or what thoughts or ideas do you have for bringing a sense of joy compassion empathy for each other and unity to the middle school at the student level staff level and for the whole school this that is the core of what i do i've been in positions where i've walked into schools that have had 12 or 13 leaders over the past 12 or 13 years and my job is always to start by changing that

061culture and the way you change that culture is one with high academic expectations but two is with those cultural expectations that i've discussed before the belief that no matter what that relationship that i build is key to the success of what we do in this school number two is really having the voice our teachers and students feeling that they are part of the decision making and the community at that school and if they do they're going to be less likely to destroy that community if people don't feel that they're part of something they're not going to be working towards that common goal so developing that common goal is key for teachers and other stakeholders if i get all the teachers together and we come up with what our goals are for the year then we

062work towards those goals and everyone can hold each other accountable to those goals i can ask the question what are the goals for the school now and if you can think and articulate them if you're a student and you can say these are the goals that we have this is what we want to reach then once everybody knows those we're in the right direction but if you can't think of those now then that's where i can come in and that's where i can create solid plans with a team to build that joy to build that unity specifically in the community i love getting the community involved and the way i always do that is by showing off what we do at the school because many times the community doesn't know what great things happen in

063the school students could be doing wonderful things we could have a community we could have a garden we could have a robotics team we could have a you know a role-playing game club and if there's community members out there who do that and they didn't know that the school was doing that and maybe they have old things they would like to donate or new things getting that community involved by showing off what we do is key so thinking in terms of building joy are the students involved in what takes place are the faculty part of that guiding process for them as to hey you have a voice do the faculty feel with me as the administrator that they are heard again my door is always open i am always out and about i am always

064listening um for me it is so key um and again the way you build that joy too is with uh a person who doesn't want to to go anywhere uh i've spent the first 17 years of my career in one place uh and for me i want to end the last you know 18 years of my career in one place and i hope that's amherst regional middle school because once you have that stability and once you have that person who will stop at nothing to make sure every student feels that joy in what they're doing to make sure every student then leaves that school and goes to the high school with that joy and comes back into the community with that joy they're going to want to stay in the community they're going to want

065to raise their family in the community they're going to want to run businesses in the community and so it really again going back to that first quarter second question why middle school it's because we are so capable of answering um and shaping lives for the students there uh and so that joy and then just give you some examples i actually have what i call the heinek ding dong cart i literally buy ice cream for the entire school i get my cell phone out or a speaker and i play the ding dong cart music or ice cream truck whatever you call it and i go down the hallways and i reward students when i see them doing things if the goal was to have no students in the hallway when the bell rang you're getting rewarded

066for it if the goal was you know 100 participation on a certain assignment in a certain class you're going to be rewarded for it so having that kind of concept and to give you one more specific example at chestnut middle school every single one of my teachers i asked them to be part of an after school club so every single day monday through friday there were at least two clubs that were taking place in the school and there were multiple teachers who were part of those clubs so if one teacher couldn't stay then the club didn't you know the club could still happen so we came together as a staff and said we want our students to expand their horizons not just during the day but after school and every one of us is committed

067to doing that and once the teachers believed in that we had clubs like i said every day of the week i didn't have students going home and students i want you to stay at school as long as possible because then i know what how you are being shaped i want you to stay there as long as possible so you can have fun doing other things besides your core math english social science or elective classes so doing things and then as a teacher if you are passionate about something can you bring that passion into your club and what you do after school if you love riding bikes if you love playing ultimate frisbee if you love doing yoga or mindfulness or meditation start a club and get that going every day because then again that relationship

068that you can build as that adult you're going to have students that you may never thought would have come to your club just because they might not like doing it the activity but they like you and that's the most important part back to that old adage students aren't going to remember what you taught them they're going to remember how you treated them and that's at the core of how i build joy in school thank you as principal communication with families students and teachers is key how will you communicate effectively with each of these stakeholders communication is a core strength of mine my current facebook page right now is filled with communication that i have given to the families every day since this pandemic has started uh and when i say every day at the beginning

069every day as teachers and students and parents start to feel more comfortable then i started to pull back because the communication was repetitive um and so it's always about the check-in too so for me communicating is something that starts with listening if i can hear that something isn't going the way it needs to whether it's in the classroom whether it's from a student saying i'm not being treated fairly then it's time to start that communication how do we bridge that communication i like face-to-face communication i love typing communication i just love communicating because again if a parent doesn't know what's going on in the school or in the classroom they're going to guess and if they're guessing and it could lead to struggles between them and their child because the child could be saying one

070thing they could hear different reports from the teacher and the report card could say something totally different so for me it's about bringing parents into the school i have an open door policy anytime a parent comes if i can i will meet with them if not i will ask them to wait if they can't wait i will reschedule and if i need to i can go to their house i have no problems being that key communicator for the school and again the more the community knows what is taking place the more that they are likely to be involved in supporting the school and for students again i am around the students all day that is what drives me i am working with students i am sitting in classroom with students i have this thing that

071i do all the time where i actually come in dressed as a student backpack and all and i will go from sit in one class and i will be a student in that class and i will follow that group wherever they go i will eat lunch with them i will talk with them uh and so for me uh that that's kind of the best way to communicate first is to listen and then second is to ensure consistent lines of communication across the board from students whether it be explaining policies during assemblies i love creating youtube videos and so again if you're not able to hear my message you can go back home and watch my message and i also want to make sure that families understand that i'm not just a person talking to you

072via email i'm a person i will send video messages back to parents so they can see my face because again you can misread things through email through the way text is written so if you can hear it from me i like to leverage the technology that we have to communicate i also like to hear again listen i like to send surveys i like to make sure parents voices heard students voices heard teacher voices heard and even community members voices heard so again that communication is literally the second thing about me is listening communicating uh is what those core kind of strengths are and how i would bring that to amherst regional middle school thank you can you give an example of a change you have led in one of your schools what strategies did you

073use to engage staff and teachers and to bring people through the process in in your answer please cite how did you communicate the need for the change and get input from the broader community and how did you evaluate the outcome of the change having been a turnaround principal uh change is 99 of what happens in the turnaround school changing school culture changing academics changing curriculums changing times changing schedules changing the school day i have lots of experience making change at school one of the biggest way that i think um to to implement that change is again starting with the comm the stakeholders the teachers and the students so listening and hearing what is taking place and what students and staff feel needs to be done once i can hear that and i can form that

074team of dedicated staff members that want to make the changes we can then decide what those changes will be to give you a specific example walking into my current position the schedule at the school rotated it rotated seven days six classes a day so listening to teachers say and talk about how the hallways were an issue how consistent implementation of policies was an issue we made a choice to change to a non-rotating static seven class a day schedule each class ended up being 50 minutes long and that change was something that the school had not had in as long as they can remember the schedule always rotated so being able to say all right i've listened to everybody i have this core team of teachers that that's willing to be part of this teacher leadership

075team we decided that changing the schedule to a static non-rotating schedule is what was going to be best for our students and separating the school from a 7 through 12 school into a 7th and 8th grade school and a 9 through 12 school so those were two huge changes that the school had not experienced for the previous i can't tell you how many years so things were different those things were different from for staff and they were different from students the outcomes of those changes sorry i think it usually comes in twos yeah it might have stopped um the outcomes and how we monitored those changes was through consistent monitoring that leadership team meets daily i shouldn't say daily leadership team meets weekly but we also have daily check-ins in the morning so we can

076see is this working what is going on and that comes back to one of my core strengths as an individual is my ability to reflect i am such a reflective person always thinking about what was what i said and what was received as the message and how can i make sure that that message is clear and so that was one really big drastic change that had not happened at that school and once that did happen we noticed hallways were clear every teacher knew where every student needed to be at every single time there was consistency in the amount of time spent per class so it wasn't you were going three days in one class you didn't see that student for two days you saw every student every day so that consistency of your knowledge building

077that consistency of your education really helped uh and then just having again that consistency of that schedule is what really made change at that school initially but it wasn't something that has been thought of or done in previous so again i started the conversation with listening i heard what the problems were and then i i added in could we do this and then i brought people on board that could help do it and believed in it and so it wasn't just me coming to all staff all families all community members and saying hey i'm your new principal and i just decided that we're changing the schedule that has is totally different than how it has been for the past x number of years it came from the team that this is how we are going

078to approach this because these were the issues that we're experiencing and once again that team buy-in and when it wasn't just coming from top down from me then everybody kind of filled in and so that was just one example of a major change that that took place uh in a school and how i led that that change and so communicating that before school even started i invited my seventh graders in for one day my eighth graders in for one day my high school students in for one day gave them schedules before they walked in the building had parent nights multiple parent nights before this happened to inform them and say this is what we've determined based upon what we've heard and what we've seen and that's how the change was able to take place but

079i also have experience making change culturally coming in uh and really trying to make teachers believe that every student counts so i've been able to shape teacher beliefs i've been able to shape student beliefs and again bringing that joy because if everybody believes in you with that relationship are you going to be successful the answer is yes because i will stop no matter what no matter how you treated me the day before i will always be there for you i will never give up on you and i will never make excuses as to why you're not getting the service that you need uh and so again having that consistency again of being able to listen being able to make changes as a team and then being able to communicate those changes as a team to

080all the stakeholders is key to making change and then to evaluate it me as a reflective practitioner consistently scheduling times where we are focusing and getting together on specific actionable items uh and having that teacher leadership team is key to making changes that last and can be implemented without one person being the key to that you know the cog in the wheel if you will if everybody's pushing that wheel and one person has to take a break that wheel will keep rolling and that's kind of the main thing thank you how do you foresee your leadership style influencing teacher instruction and how have you supported teachers in meeting the needs of all students i i smile really big right now because it's literally my favorite thing in the world to do is to to be

081coaching teachers to improve student performance uh being able to sit with an educator and engage in conversation with them about what's taking place to engage in conversation upon about what they are seeing and what students are doing and then figuring out a way how to move that needle together is key and i love doing it i love helping develop i love developing i love giving professional development it is one of my favorite things in the world to do i am a coach right and for sports and so i bring that philosophy into my administrative style i am your coach i am here to help you i am not a gotcha principal and i know there are they exist out there i will never walk into your room and say you are doing this wrong i

082will never call you out on anything because that makes me then above you and without you as a teacher i'm nothing because without you as that conduit to the students then we don't exist so again it's it's the most important thing in the world for me is prioritizing teacher development and coaching them uh through change whether it's curriculum change whether it's change in state standards whether it's change in online or distance learning uh and if it's something as you said you know i've been doing this for 25 30 years i don't know how to use google classroom i'm not gonna it's about well what can we start on with and how can i inspire you to say the bottom line it's all about the student and what we're doing to prioritize your development is going

083to help students i have a phrase that i say um teachers need to learn at an higher or accelerated level more than the students if we want to change or close the achievement gap so your learning has to be taking place as a staff member higher or at the same speed of the students learning so for me as an administrator i need to prioritize that i need to make sure that the pd that i am giving you is based upon the goals and the vision that we set for those of you who have seen my resume you can see a document on there called the vision of excellent instruction that is a document created by teachers that outlines what classroom instruction looks like and what we will do for teacher actions and what we expect

084student actions to be and once we have that goal and that vision every piece of professional development that i give or we deliver because i love finding teachers that are doing things amazingly well and having them be the ones deliver the professional development once we have that going the professional development is interesting to you we've all sat through pd where it's sit and get you'll never get a sit and get pd from me my pd always starts with modeling or introducing the topic giving you time during that session to incorporate or think about it and make it yours and discuss it with your colleagues and then i'm sure some of you have guessed is to show it off to show how you are going to implement this so that's what a pd session looks like

085that i deliver um and so again it's making sure that i am modeling consistently all the time what i expect teachers to be doing whether it's teacher interactions in the classroom teacher interactions in the hallway parent to parent student to student i'm always out there modeling so again having that relevant professional development prioritizing teacher learning and not only that but creating conditions where teachers can learn during the day specific example chestnut middle school high school of commerce north brookfield junior senior high school all in springfield academy all of those schools i created a schedule that had daily every single day um professional learning community time for teachers i prioritize that that means not only do you have a prep period you also have a period to meet with your team and that team time can

086be either professional development it can be data analysis and it can be just time for you as a team to discuss students needs that has been put in place as a cornerstone of turnaround at all of the schools that i have been in the teachers now at my current school the middle school uh absolutely love and cherish that time that they spend together in addition to their prep because we were able to create a schedule that that solidifies that so for me my leadership style is a coach for me i prioritize teacher development and i prioritize relative professional development that is based upon our goals and that teachers agree that it is worthwhile doing for them i model all the time my expectations and again i like to put conditions in place for that to

087happen so that's how i would make sure we're prioritizing thank you the next question says please discuss the steps you will take to include restorative practices in the middle school again that you're you're at the core of my belief uh relationships right and then the repairing of damaged relationships is what makes a difference in a child's life if you're a child who's been told that you're a failure if you're a child who's received nothing but grades or suspensions you're going to think of yourself and see one thing my job is not to suspend you my job is to follow policy and i always tell students i don't want to be in a position where i have to suspend you because you've done something that is breaking something that is written down so my goal always

088is to restore the relationship if i come into a classroom and i take a student out for a walk i'm going to bring that student back but the one thing i am going to do is follow up with that student and that teacher together if possible i have implemented restorative practices at all of my schools currently at north brookfield we are in the process of creating we have a whole entire team 13 teachers that are creating a vision of restorative practices across the school because it's not something that was implemented it's in the process of being started right now and i am leading that that charge because i believe in the power of restoring relationships as a key to improving student performance and behavior telling students they're suspended telling students their failures telling students they're

089wrong only solidifies that in their brains and if they come from generations where that is what is expected of them and they don't have that hope that's where i come in with that restorative practice and making sure that they have hope so if it's not already created i would create a vision for restorative justice and restorative practice at the school i would create a specific schedule of when these things would happen in terms of community meetings uh circles uh to make sure that we are always putting restorative practice and the prioritization of relationships at the forefront of what we do in our building and again that word our building if you feel you have a stake in it if you're a student and you've been getting in trouble excuse me in the same class over

090and over and over again and you say mr heineck that teacher never listens to me no matter what i do i'm wrong if you don't have a chance to be able to say that to that teacher in a forum where everybody is there to listen first then you will not feel heard and you will not feel that you can take risks in that room and you will not feel motivated to want to do the work in that room or even be interested in it so that core of restoring the relationships is that is the core of my belief in how we change culture how we bring joy and how we as teachers can help our students understand the overarching sense of community building because again i'm now showing you through a circle or through a

091restorative practice or through positive uh pbis that i am here to help you with positivity i am here to help you with the learning that needs to take place to improve the behavior that you're showing and i'm gonna support you even if you mess up because again we don't expect if student could change their behavior instantly they would but we have to teach the right behavior if we see problematic behaviors and i never expect a student to know how to make change because everybody is different so if i say you know you're not supposed to be doing that that's wrong because they might not know how to do something differently they might not have the confidence to do something differently they might not have the confidence to ask somebody how to do something differently or

092explain their thought process and restorative practice is the key to doing that so creating a vision to summarize creating a vision of restorative practice for at the school ensuring times are in place for restorative practice um uh community meetings and circles to happen and ensuring that teachers staff students community members know through communication that this is what we are going to do first and that's how again an example i've been able to reduce suspension rates drastically at each school i have been at through restorative practices but not just by me doing it by a belief that everybody is doing it and so that is where that team building comes in and the team consensus on our our goals thank you at this point we are turning to some of the questions in the chat the

093first question comes from a student and it says how will you make relationships with the students at farms so again uh that's a great question because i am always with the students i i mean any other any staff member that you ever ask about me is he is always out and about my i am out there asking you questions i am playing games that you're playing i will sit and watch you play minecraft on your phone if that's what you're doing and then i'll ask you to tell me how to do that so i can take it back to my five-year-old son who is trying to learn minecraft so he can start playing uh and so i am always with the students i i try to think like a student all the time and i

094try to always be empathetic and again that's a core belief and i've worked so hard over the years to always be empathetic to students needs and so students feel comfortable talking to me they feel comfortable listening to me because i'm not walking down the hallway yelling at students i've actually don't think i've ever yelled in a school before um always saying hey what can i do to help you let's get you where you need to be oh you're you're 10 minutes late you don't have a pass come on i'll bring you and i'll say you were with me like i i will do things to help a student feel comfortable but then the next step that i'm going to take is to teach them what they need to do if they need to do something

095differently but again it comes back to that relationship i love to do fun things i love having assemblies i love having competitions i love having uh fun times dances um my current student council at northwood junior senior high school has 77 student members on it so that they they love to be part of a team that is designing activities and i give them free rein what do you want to do give me the calendar if it fits i'll approve it if it doesn't fit we'll find a date for it to fit if it's something that's outrageous and it's something you guys want to do we'll find a way to make it work with when the constraints that we have but again for me my job is to help the students without you without students i

096am nothing i do not exist so everything i do in this world is to help you become your absolute best and i will always be there for you no matter what no matter how you treated me the day before no matter what happened to you the day before no matter if you've been suspended nothing i am going to be there with a smile greeting you and helping you along the way every day no matter what and if you're a student right now who is on here and you're like oh i get in trouble a lot i'm going to be your best friend and that sounds weird to say but i'm going to be there with you trying to keep you out of trouble and teach you what's right to do and if you're one of

097the top students i'm going to be right there pushing you i'm going to say to you you know how could you have done this differently what do you think about this and i'm going to push you into things you like for me having that sense of humor is key if you tell me i want to write short stories or i want to design cartoons and you show me something that you've done i'm going to encourage and push you to do that um no matter what it is specifically if you feel that you are going through changes right now uh if you don't feel like you're the person that you are on the inside on the outside i am there to support you i am there to grow you as the person you want to be

098not the person that people may want you to be but i want you to feel comfortable being you whoever that is and the way i do that is by having fun with you and being out there with you uh and just always being that person that is there for you and then doing lots of fun things too i have a three-year-old daughter a five-year-old son i've been a middle school principal i've been a high school principal uh i know um what makes students tick and i know that because i listen to them one of the best pieces of advice that i've ever gotten in my entire life didn't come from someone above me it came from a student and all it was it went like this mr please just listen to me that was it

099and that advice i take all the time if you're coming into my office and you need to talk i'm going to let you explain what's going on i'm going to listen to you i'm not going to start by telling you what you did wrong where you're going next and how long you're going to be there for i'm going to listen and that i think is what makes me really strong at building relationships uh and plus if there's any basketball players in here i've coached basketball i can cross everybody up at the school i promise you that and we can continue to have fun things that take place on a daily basis thank you next question says what can you say about the cultural context of amherst and how is that similar or different to other

100schools in which you have worked so that's that's a really good question and so i have always worked in urban centers i've always been drawn to students that are in minority populations i myself and every school that i have worked at have actually been the minority and so for me it's about always wanting to put my best self forward and model for students how to put their best self forward and if we're all again working towards that same goal um and always trying to improve that's why i want to be an amherst because every time i walk down main street every time i would drive down any street um if i was delivering something to someone's house because i i worked after taylor rental and hadley um i would always be overwhelmed with this sense

101of community support with progressive thinking with the idea that we our job is to help others around us no matter what and so that type of cultural context and speaking of different races i've always been wherever i've gone drawn to helping students who need it the most and whether they've been they're in generational poverty whether they've been marginalized whether they are not heard it is my job to instill civic responsibility in everyone i come in contact with to make sure that we as a unit can help everyone become better and even if i see moments of injustice happening if i see racism happening if i see bigotry if i see sexism i attack it i do not allow it and i think of that as educational moments i may not be able to change your

102beliefs at home but i can definitely change your thought process and hopefully instill empathy in you so you can see that your words actions languages have outcomes that are devastating to other people and then i always like to if i do see it make sure that we are doing going above and beyond to repair that to repay that so again for me the town of amherst is a melting pot of cultures i celebrate all cultures one of the things that i've done at chestnut uh with the multiple cultures that we've had there is we have days where we celebrate if there was a specific day in your culture that was a day of heritage or a day of remembrance i would make sure that that is announced i would make sure that we would do

103something in each classroom that makes the spotlight on that culture because most people who are ignorant or bigoted or racist don't know about what takes place in other cultures so again so to educate is always key for me i cannot stand those things i cannot stand bullying uh i attack it with vigor and i insure you and i say this all the time to my parents and students there are more of us who stand up to racism there are more of us who stand up to bullies than there are of racists and bullies and if all of us together walk up to that person and say this is not tolerated this is not allowed this does not happen here at our school or in our community then it will stop happening and so to inspire

104you to be able to be part of that on that side of it that's my goal but for that cultural context of amherst that is what has drawn me to apply to this position that's this passion you can see coming through me right now i want to be in the town of amherst because of that cultural context and that always ability and that belief that the community is there to help everybody at all the time and i want to grow that in students and i want students to take that and come back to the community educated working and having the ability and want to raise their family in that community thank you how will you ensure that paraprofessionals are seen as important parts of the community at arms the best way for me to describe

105this is paraprofessionals are that invisible bridge there's somebody sometimes the teacher will say oh you did really well on this and there might be a para sitting in the back of that classroom smiling because they know that they put that time and effort in to bridge that gap between what the teacher was saying what the student heard and what they are able to do paraprofessionals in my opinion are the lifeblood of the school their role is more important than anything that can be described on paper and it is way more important than the salary that they make i have meetings where i prioritize paraprofessionals i give equal training to paraprofessionals every single teacher training that i do i invite paraprofessionals too because there's no one that i know that doesn't want to become better at

106what they do and paraprofessionals in my opinion are the best relationship builders so when i need something done when i need a relationship with a student that doesn't have one with anybody it's usually a paraprofessional that i turn to to say hey this is what you do this is what i see you do you bridge that gap you build that relationship because you believe in that student and you treat that student with respect so again paraprofessionals for me are key because they are a member of that community and they are a member of that community that sometimes goes unnoticed but when students do things that are amazing you can always turn and see a paraprofessional behind them a teacher behind them and i treat them as equals in that right is that they are the

107one of the most important aspects of building relationships in schools you next question says can you share your thoughts on collaborations between the middle school and umass also what are your thoughts on opportunities for our students to participate in umass programs well i can start with i am a graduate of the eisenberg school of management at umass uh so umass is at my heart um and so i'm gonna give you a specific example um when i was at chestnut middle school i actually had sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade and we started doing college trips so i was taking sixth graders seventh graders and 8th graders on college visits to get that will or instill that i want to go to college no matter what no matter how no matter what my social economic

108status is no matter if no one in my family has even graduated high school i am going to get instilled in you the importance of going to college or having post graduate plans and so that bridge i created at chestnut between lots of the schools in springfield springfield college western new england university westfield state university by getting students to go there and so once that the college can see that hey i am a member of this community that wants to involve myself with you then i can start to make those connections so building on connections that i already have at umass i would love to see students being over there for classes i would love to leverage i know i just read an article in the paper about umass giving money to the town of

109amherst for the schools how can we make sure that that money is also then spread out back to the college by saying can you use some of that money for your professors to include our students in things that they're doing can we make a connection between the school of education where students are training to be teachers and other departments across umass saying you know we have this lovely strong robotics program at umass you're training as a umass student to be a teacher can you work cooperatively with the robotics department in the teaching department to bring lessons to our students in the middle school and can we then get our middle school students over to umass so again that key that umass is probably the biggest community member for our school system uh and so in

110being able to get the students over to umass to see what it feels like not just to walk through it or drive through it but to be part of it to be in it for professors are working with them as well professors are working with our teachers to collaboratively plan i think that is key and to bridge that gap is my responsibility and the responsibility of the team that i put on an outreach team uh and so again that collaboration between all of the colleges um is in the the surrounding area are so important but it all starts with being able to reach out and if we can hire an another example at chestnut middle school we hired a person to do solely that the the position was essentially student life coordinator so their job

111was to reach out to colleges to reach out to businesses to say how can you come support our students can we bring our students to you and so i've had experience putting a person in charge of that to build those connections because again i know how hard a teacher's job is i know how much students have on their plate so finding time to do that extra reach out is always challenging so again to build and put a team in place that will do that or maybe to even hire someone that will do that to build and bridge that gap so that the community is coming together to support our students and our students are able to go back out into the community to see what it is like is key so i prioritize that and

112being a umass grad i look forward to doing it thank you the next question says you've worked in springfield which has a unique identity and population under your leadership if you had to brand the middle school to the community city state what do you want its identity to be uh so if we were talking in terms of my chestnut middle school in springfield our brand was we were a pac p a k we were productive accountable and kind those were our values and so anywhere that a student from chestnut went we brought those values with us i think as a principal i think one of the the best compliments i've ever had as a principal from another principal a colleague was a high school principal and he said to me he said jason i can

113tell right away which students were yours because again with you know lots of middle schools in springfield all feeding into five or six high schools that was one of the biggest compliments i ever had and i brought that back to the staff and i said this is because you did amazing work you were able to believe as a staff and productive accountable kind and you were able to make students believe in being productive accountable kind uh and so that is how we start branding we create the vision of what we want teachers to be doing in the classroom and what we want students to be doing in the classroom and then we distribute that to everybody we distribute that to the community so again the middle school in my opinion in amherst um should always

114focus on core values so these are the core values of amherst regional middle school these are the core values of the people that are in it these are the core values of the teachers the principals the custodians the paraprofessionals the cafeteria workers the anybody that steps foot in there and we take those values and we spread them out into the community and so we want to be known for what we do best which is help other people and stop at nothing until we can find success uh and if you can do that and if you are kind in everything that you're doing that is how i would want amherst regional middle school to be seen uh and then you think about the programs the clubs that that the school does that are the students are

115passionate about does the community know what makes the school tick does the community know what these clubs are and how they're happening or what the the sports teams are doing um and so again it's that sense of are we all doing this together based upon the norms and values that we have set and i gave you an example of what we did at chestnut and that goes back to my core belief too that phrase all means all no excuses and if you believe in that we don't make excuses for ourselves uh we get things done when we need to we're productive accountable kind that's just a good example of the beliefs on how i would do that thank you please provide an example of how you have inspired students i'm gonna go all the way

116back to my second year third year teaching where i had my first student that i was responsible for graduate uh i can tell you his name right now because i'll never forget it but i won't say it um but this student came hating school came not ever being successful in school was 19 years old and started was still a freshman and so through the course of the year working with this student building that relationship with the student showing up at that student's doorstep on saturdays to help tutor them uh i i was able to get that student to graduate and i'll never forget that moment when i was standing there watching him walk down the aisle uh and i just was overcome with emotion because i i put in the effort to build that relationship

117with student and this student i don't know i have lost contact with them i don't know where they are today or what they're doing but i do know that if i saw them we would remember each other and everything we did together instantaneously because that relationship that we built was so powerful that it changed that student's life and the fact that i just wouldn't give up and i think when that student saw that that hey listen i'm coming i'm gonna help you through this yeah i know you just threw something i know you struggle with mental health i know you can't you have trouble functioning but i'm not stopping and i'm gonna be there to help you and just slowly working with that student we got them to graduate and then in terms of doing

118it on a larger context um i still have students come up to me today from when i was the principal at the high school of commerce to say mr heineck i remember you changed our lives uh when i started there you can the bottom one percent school in massachusetts hallways full all day long two hallways empty students learning and students believing in themselves uh and it all came back down to that tenacity uh and that relationship building that i have so i still have students coming to me today saying mr heineck you inspired me because you didn't give up on me that that sign i have a gigantic poster it's 12 feet long it says never give up it goes everywhere with me uh and so teaching students that teaching students that phrase all means

119all no excuses and teaching them that there are a hundred people working in this building that believe in you that that's kind of how you can how i inspire students and always it comes back to being there for them thank you and thank you for telling us about yourself and your qualifications for this position thank you all for joining this forum once again the session was recorded and will be available for viewing at a later time this ends the second session thank you thank you everybody you