Town Manager Paul Bockelman and Superintendent Dr. Ericilda Xiomara Herman meet with community members at Cuppa Joe with Paul event.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Garnet
AMHERST — On July 12, Town Manager Paul Bockelman was joined by Dr. Ericilda Xiomara Herman, the new superintendent of schools for the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District, during its monthly “Cuppa’ Joe with Paul” event.
The “Cuppa’ Joe with Paul” coffees are a monthly event and rotate around the town. Each time, Bockelman is joined by a different town department head or official.
During this informal event, residents and others are welcome to share their concerns, offer suggestions or just get to know each other.
Herman began executing her duties for the district on July 1 and has been visiting with staff, students and members of the broader community.
She listened, learned and shared her vision for schools and added she is eager to understand the values and needs of the community as she begins her work as superintendent.
Student safety, healing and stabilizing the district and data are three priorities that Herman said she is focusing on since she officially began her new role.
Herman talked about the importance of student safety and supporting teachers.
“If everyone feels it is a welcoming place for them and that they are safe. If the staff don’t feel well, if the staff doesn’t feel like they are supported then they can’t support our children then our students aren’t safe. I focus a lot on student safety,” Herman added.
She also said she wants to be able to not only listen to the concerns and comments from the community but also wants to use data to help her.
“I told my team, there’s a lot of noise, there’s a lot of chatter, there’s a lot of things a lot of people say but bring me the data, bring me the evidence and tell me how that’s going to impact our schools and what they need,” Herman said.
Many residents at the meeting said they were former and current educators voicing their concerns on different matters.
Other residents and Town Council members joined to voice their support for Herman and let her know they are there if she needs anything.
Herman shared her plans for upcoming plans for the administration at the middle school and high school. She acknowledged that Amherst Regional High School Principal Talib Sadiq gave a valiant effort in trying to float between the middle school and high school.
“Running a high school is not easy, running a middle school is not easy. When I met with him I said, I said he did a great job and he did what he could to make sure this town and its students had what it needed. From my research, leadership at the middle school has had a lot of turnover,” Herman added.
The plan is to continue to have an interim principal at the middle school, Dr. Michael Sullivan. A new assistant principal was just hired as well.
Herman said the plan was to hire an interim principal so that they can focus on the district itself and install new practices to fix the culture.
She said, “Stabilizing the middle school is not going to happen overnight. It’s really about stabilizing the leadership, getting to know the culture. We will start a search for a new middle principal but not now. I think we will need to go in a hear the voices of the teachers because they have been there the longest. Also put some practices in place to support that leader.”
Sadiq will be going back to the high school and address and Herman said he has a plan in place to focus on areas of concerns.
Herman continued talking about the facilities of the buildings and answering other questions or concerns parents had.
She added that she will continue to meet with staff and community members at each school but will have a much clearer picture of the work that needs to be done once the classrooms and schools are filled with students again.
