Educators, administrators, members of the public and city and state officials gathered at St. Anthony’s Cedar’s Banquet Hall on Jan. 17 to witness and participate in Superintendent Sonia Dinnall’s state of the schools address.
Reminder Publishing photos by Ryan Feyre
SPRINGFIELD — Many things were covered during Superintendent Sonia Dinnall’s state of the schools address on Jan. 17; but one key word repeatedly bounced off the walls of the St. Anthony’s Cedar’s Banquet Hall: “believe.”
“My first 100 days were days that I chose to believe,” Dinnall said in front of over 200 educators, community members and city and state officials on the brisk Friday morning. “I believe we have all the answers in this room and in the community. I believe the sum total of our knowledge, expertise, and experiences can help us come up with the innovations and the strategies that will allow us to truly set a high bar and have our students achieve and exceed that bar.”
“Believe” may have been the unofficial theme of the day for the superintendent, who started in the position six month ago, but “collaboration” also dominated what turned out to be a highly interactive state of the schools address at the banquet hall.
‘Educate to Empower’
Dinnall spent part of her speech looking at ways Springfield Public Schools can “educate to empower.” She told the public that she wants to shake any negative perception outsiders may have of the School Department, saying that there is “more good than bad” happening.
She touched on the importance of maintaining the department’s six pillars on a portrait of a graduate and emphasized the need for the schools to improve early literacy so that students are reaching above the benchmark for early literacy by the time they are in second grade.
According to school data, 41% of second grade students are currently well below the benchmark for early literacy, while 16% are above the benchmark.
“It is not an unrealistic expectation for [students] to be reading on grade level by the end of the second grade because we believe in our ability to do it, and we believe in the students who sit in front of us,” Dinnall said.
The superintendent also brought up the need for a middle school transformation. She recalled the time when pre-algebra and algebra was offered when she was a middle schooler going through the Springfield School Department and wondered why those classes are not available anymore.
She reminisced on the time extracurricular classes were offered, like sewing or cooking, and pondered how the district can rekindle that magic she felt when she was that age.
“I smile when I think of my experience in middle school,” Dinnall said. “Are our students smiling? What do we have to do to get them to smile again?”
Dinnall also opined on the importance of college and career readiness. She told the story of how her parents had to work paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet until her mother became one of the first Black women to earn her associate’s degree as a registered nurse from Springfield Technical Community College.
The attainment of that degree allowed the family to live a more comfortable lifestyle, Dinnall said.
Witnessing that experience illustrated how important it is to be college and career-ready, according to Dinnall, and now she wants to make sure students in Springfield are ready in their own right by helping them find a perfect fit for their path and making sure they are still following that path post-graduation.
“We’re not going to leave them to just flounder on their own,” Dinnall said. “We’ve got to build that bridge from that senior year to their first year of whatever it is they decide to do.”
Priorities for the district
During her speech, Dinnall also touched on several updates in her three-phased entry plan she submitted just prior to starting in the position.
One aspect of the plan she touched on was district developments in relationships and leadership; like better preparing new leaders entering the School Department by asking high-performing principals to mentor them.
“We know that our schools are run by talented and committed leaders, [and] we know that our classrooms are full of teachers who believe that they can make a difference,” Dinnall said. “But we also noticed that there was a difference in the level of expectations. We noticed that there was a difference in the amount of support some of our leaders received.”
Dinnall also mentioned the importance of the Academic and Support Services for Equity Team, which was created to gather several staff members weekly to pore over data and see where they can further support children in the classroom.
“Central office is in service to the buildings; that’s why we exist,” Dinnall said. “We’re entering into a collaborative space of support, mutual respect, coaching, listening, and making sure that we come up with solutions and strategies that work for those who are tasked with implementing them every day in the buildings.”
Coinciding with that vision is Dinnall’s goals of “learning and achievement” and “family community engagement.” In the former goal, the superintendent said the department is working toward finding ways to better support new teachers or teachers who took less traditional paths to education; and in the latter, the department is developing a gameplan for how they can motivate families to come to more community events.
She said Springfield Public Schools started collecting information from several focus groups on the weekends to see how people feel about family engagement in the district.
“I’ve been to over 50 community events from the time I started to December [2024] and the story is the same; the feedback is the same,” Dinnall said. “They feel as if they’re not always welcomed or understood or invited to the table to make meaningful change. So, we’re going to most definitely put our money where our mouth is and make some strategic changes.”
In her speech, Dinnall also touched on improvements in the department’s operations and finance by looking at who the district needs to hire, what positions need to be reinstated and what her administration can do to make sure everyone is set up for success.
She noted that Springfield has the biggest budget she has ever had to deal with.
“We’re going to make sure we have the staff in place that everyone can feel as if they’re making a meaningful contribution with the right amount of support,” Dinnall said.
Other aspects of the address
Aside from Dinnall’s speech, a large portion of the program on Jan. 17 was dedicated to hearing attendees’ perspective on where the school district stands, and what aspects should be further scrutinized.
At one point, Dinnall had everyone break out into groups to look at the district’s data; whether it be attendance, English proficiency, high school completion, or postsecondary outcomes of high school graduates; and asked every group to provide thoughts, ideas or questions based on what they studied.
When the activity finished, Dinnall said the analysis and questions were captured for her administration to further study.
“Some of these barriers and obstacles that continue to plague us, we’re going to turn to your ‘notices’ and ‘wonderings’ to help us answer those questions and really develop some innovative strategies to solve the problems,” Dinnall said.
The program also included music from the Springfield Conservatory of the Arts band, a celebration of schools that performed well on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, and a “Tomorrow’s Leaders Student Dialogue” session where three students from the district told the public about a major project they are working on in the classroom and in the community.
Conclusion
As the program reached its twilight, Dinnall circled back to the concept of believing and repeatedly asked the public if they believed like she did.
She noted the importance of teamwork and collaboration and how it can lead to “wonderful things” for Springfield.
She also implored the public to look at the department’s strategic operating plan and lend their voice to the discussion.
“I believe in you; I believe in me; I believe in our community; I believe in our families; I believe in our students,” she said. “We can do this shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, heart-to-heart. We can do this together.”
