CTES principal candidates meet the public

By Shawn Cunningham
©2023 Telegraph Publishing LLC

On the face of it, the two candidates hoping to become the next principal of the Cavendish Town Elementary School couldn’t be more different.

For one, it would be her first principal post, while the other has nearly 25 years of principal experience at several elementary schools. At the same time, one is local and has intimate knowledge of the school and the community while the other would have to move here from nearly 500 miles away. One has experience in small rural schools while the other has spent a career in large city or suburban schools.

Last night, the community had the opportunity to hear both and ask questions and – in the Zoom session at least – many of the answers were similar.

Dale Mann, outgoing principal at John Eaton Elementary in Washington, D.C., was asked, “Why come to Cavendish?” He said he was ready for a change, noting that he was principal of his school for 10 years when the average for a D.C. school is three. Mann said he grew up in a small town in Maryland and was looking for the small town atmosphere. He said that Cavendish Elementary has an excellent reputation.

Amanda Tyrrell, who teaches grades 5/6 at Chester-Andover Elementary, lives in Cavendish, graduated from CTES and has children who attended the school. She said she knows the students, the staff and the community and feels that she is the “right fit” to unite the school and bring stability to a school, which has had four principals in five years.

Both were asked how they would balance the needs and wants of the students and community with state mandates and other requirements and both said they would start by building relationships and trust.

Mann said he would get to know the strengths of the organization – its mission and vision – and develop mechanisms for communication and in the end find ways to implement mandates “in our own way.”

Tyrrell said that you need to take mandates seriously and develop enough trusting relationships to be clear about expectations. Then work together “within the box” to meet them as a team.

As the school moves toward multi-grade classrooms, both candidates said they saw value in such arrangements. Tyrrell, who teaches in such a classroom, said it has “so many benefits” including flexibility in grouping students together for assignments.

On the subject of the school’s viability in the face of shrinking student population, Tyrrell told the meeting that CAES is “packed” and the solution may be to “innovate in how we redistrict towns.” She said she was not a fan of doing this by having one set of grades in one school and another set in a second school.

Mann said he had experienced a district “boundary change” in his last school and it was rough but in the end it worked out calling it “a very positive change.”

One place that the two differed was in response to a question by Cheryl Hammond,  business manager for the Two Rivers Supervisory Union, who asked what budget experience each had. Tyrrell said she did not have much experience but has had some training and sees getting up to speed in that area as a matter of “homework.” Mann said he had had years of working with budgets with various levels of autonomy in his decisions, including staffing levels.

In the end, Mann said his vision for the school is to be a place where students can’t wait to get there. He said he would have high expectations for student behavior as well as academics. Tyrrell said she didn’t want CTES to just “stay afloat or be viable” but to the place that parents say “that’s the school I want my kids to go to.”

The Green Mountain Unified School District Board will meet on Wednesday night to interview the candidates and choose a new principal, who will take over on July 1, 2023.