When former principal Mr. Antonelli announced that he was leaving WA, the search was on to find the next person to tackle the principal position. Though there was a multitude of worthy candidates, ultimately, there was one person who stood out for the job: former dean Dan Twomey.
The 2023-2024 school year will be Twomey’s 14th year working at WA. Before working at WA, he worked as a math teacher at a middle school in Groton-Dunstable. At WA, Twomey started out as an athletic director for seven years before becoming a dean in 2017. He then spent the next seven years as a dean of students before stepping into this new role.
“I felt like it was the right time and the right place,” Twomey said. “The right opportunities only come every once in a while. […] I had to take this opportunity because I knew it was something that I wanted to do.”
In addition to the timing being right, he also feels like he has enough experience working in education between working as a math teacher, an athletic director, and a dean to be able to face the unique challenges that come with being the principal of WA.
Twomey is excited to take on this role. He is looking forward to making positive changes for WA and the Westford community.
“I’m looking forward to working with all of the different faculty, staff, and students, and trying to encourage and invigorate the best learning possible at WA,” Twomey said.
One specific possible change that he mentioned was the time that school starts. It is a common consensus among students and faculty that school starts too early in the morning. Twomey wants to work with Dr. Chew and the school board to possibly make this change.
“I keep going back to things that I know I want to try to do which include changing the school start time. That’s something that I’ve believed in for a long time,” Twomey said.
Current dean Betsy Murphy is excited to continue working with Twomey despite his transition to a higher position. She believes that he will do everything he can to make sure that WA maintains its reputation as a great high school.
“[Mr. Twomey will be] keeping what’s best about WA, while also having seen it from two different perspectives… two different roles, before taking on principal,” Murphy said.
Senior class president Devesh Khamitkar also shared his excitement about Twomey’s new position.
“Mr. Twomey is a dedicated person so I’m confident he’s going to be a good fit,” Khamitkar said.
Twomey will miss being a dean. He liked working closely with students, helping them however he could on the “frontlines”. However, he knows that he will still be able to help students, just in different ways.
“There were so many times where I helped students and faculty. […] I’m still going to be doing that in different ways as principal, but I will miss that part [of being a dean],” Twomey said.
Back when he was an athletic director, he experienced having to go to many events in a short amount of time. That, and his experience working directly with students as dean will help him as he begins this new journey.
“[As athletic director,] you go to a lot of different sports games. As a principal, I get to go to those sports games, performances, and events. I’m looking forward to being able to do that again,” Twomey said.
In an email sent out to students, parents, WA staff, and the Westford community, Mr. Twomey expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to take on the principal role.
“I want to express my heartfelt appreciation to the parents/caregivers, students, faculty, staff, and all stakeholders who have already welcomed and or congratulated me in this new role,” Twomey said. “Thank you.”
