SOUTH HADLEY — A new playground built in honor of the late Paul Plummer, the Michael E. Smith Middle School principal who died suddenly last year, is one of several changes to the South Hadley school district in the coming year.
“He certainly was a gentle, compassionate, very warm, very effective educator,” South Hadley Superintendent Nicholas Young said. “We felt very fortunate to have had him as a principal.”
Plummer died on April 4, 2017, at 49 years old.
Plummer oversaw the building of a small playground behind the middle school, Young said, and had always wanted to expand the space to better serve younger children. After he died, Young made sure Plummer’s vision came true.
“I wanted to go much bigger than what he and I had talked about,” Young said.
Plummer, who spent seven years as an assistant principal at Birchland Park Middle School in East Longmeadow, accepted a position as principal of the middle school in 2013. Young said that in his three-and-a-half years of service, he changed the school’s atmosphere for the better with morale-boosting events like ice cream socials.
“He had a nice way of establishing a supportive school culture for teachers and for the students,” Young said. “He was good at creating networks with the family and community in mind.”
With the new playground equipment, plus materials donated by Water District No. 1 Superintendent Jeff Cyr, community members got together in April to build the park. Eighth-graders that had Plummer as a principal had the opportunity to help build a retaining wall for the playground and assemble equipment.
The new playground features traditional playground games plus a miniature zipline and 12 new picnic tables built by high school carpentry students. The school is planning a ceremony to dedicate the playground to Plummer in September.
“From what I’ve heard form faculty and staff he was a very beloved principal highly regarded and respected,” said currently Michael E. Smith Middle School principal Douglas Daponde. “He was a people-first person.”
“When I came I felt that the staff needed some stability and a chance to kind of take care of each other because they’d been faced with sudden loss,” Daponde said. “I provided at least some stability and then my focus was how can I help the staff, how can we move forward, how can we heal, basically, and regroup.”
Plummer was part of ongoing discussions about how to reorganize the middle school schedule, too. A forum for parents and community members to share what they would like to see in a new schedule will be held on Sept. 26 at 5:30 p.m. at the middle school.
“We’re really looking to get students excited about coming here and expand their opportunities for study,” Daponde said. “We pretty much want to modernize the classes.”
Daponde said the administration is looking to introduce new student-driven elective courses that will make course selection more personalized and engaging.
“Project-based learning is definitely something we want to incorporate at our school,” Daponde said of the forum. “It’s going to be an opportunity to let parents know this is where we’re heading and where we want to concentrate some of our professional development.”
Young said testing for lead and other health hazards in the South Hadley school district over the summer has resulted in a number of taps in the schools being closed. Young said the district is practicing an abundance of caution by taking the “actionable” taps out of commission.
“Taking water in the summer when buildings are not flushing out increases the likelihood the water will be actionable,” Young said. “To have only a small number of actionable water sources during a summer test in June is actually very good.”
Five water stations were closed, including some bubblers in the high school, and at least one sink at Mosier Elementary School. Testing is ongoing, and the problem areas in the school will be repaired, Young said.
In response to a racist Snapchat video shared by a South Hadley high schooler last year, the district is also looking to increase training on diversity and bias for staff members. Young said there will be more emphasis on training for administrators and employees at outside conferences.
“The focus is really on professional development to expand our understanding of individual differences,” Young said.
The South Hadley school district will also be adding a second school resource officer to its ranks, to join officer Steven Fleming.
Young said discussions with the school’s nursing staff about how to lessen their workload will continue once the school year begins. In May, school nurse leader Eileen Garvey told the School Committee her staff was strained by an increasing student population, cumbersome state mandates, and increasing emotional support needs, and asked for more help.
For the first time this year, South Hadley High School’s culinary program will received Chapter 74 vocational school approval and funding. For student participating in the vocational program, this means they will follow a different curriculum than other students, and the program will receive additional state funding.
“It makes it a vocational school within the regular comprehensive high school,” Young said.
An open house for incoming fifth-graders will be held at the middle school on Aug. 30 from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
Sarah Robertson can be reached at srobertson@gazettenet.com.