By Alok Ganguly
Managing Editor
On December 10, the Massachusetts State Secretary of Education, Matt Malone, visited Westford Academy. Throughout his time in office, Malone has been visiting schools across the state to give helpful advice to administrators on how to improve the schools, and to see some of the facilities that he is responsible for.
Malone himself had a turbulent high-school experience, but after serving as Superintendent of Swampscott schools and being Executive Director of the Office of Secondary School Innovation in San Diego, finally became Secretary of Education in October 2012.
Principal Jim Antonelli was pleased to have the Secretary visit WA, and said “I’m honored to have him come to visit WA, and I’m looking forward to hear what he has to say.”
Due to traffic issues, Malone arrived at WA later than expected, but began his time here sitting down in a small personal conference that included both Antonelli and Superintendent of Schools Bill Olsen.
Afterwards, Malone toured the building and experienced some of the classes that a regular WA student would participate in, receiving a personal performance from the Honors Choir, and visiting a World History class and an Art class.
During the meeting, Malone mentioned several ways to improve the way that WA provides a hands-on learning experience in addition to an academic one, which everyone unanimously agreed was something that the school was lacking.
The most interesting proposal from Malone was the integration of Nashoba Tech classes for WA students who are focused in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) skills. Specifically, he mentioned that Nashoba has twice the amount of money that WA has, and has access to multiple hands-on learning tools.
Antonelli responded to the suggestion, saying, “I’ve reached out to the tech before, and there wasn’t much of a buyback from them. I would love to see some activities going back and forth, but I don’t know what that looks like.”
Additionally, Malone suggested that Westford make Kindergarten free as a whole to everyone, to make it more accessible for residents of the town. He also stated that giving more students an earlier start to their education would benefit their education as a whole in the long run. Once again, the room unanimously agreed that his suggestion was valid.
Malone was impressed by WA overall, and added,” It seems like this is a fun place to be a teacher, but also a fun place to be a student. Kids seem to like it here, its great overall. They’ve done a good job in investing in things that make school enjoyable for kids.”
