Being the “new kid” can be difficult anywhere — whether it’s with a school, a sports team, or a club. Adjusting to a new environment is something that everyone has to go through at some time in their life. For teachers and administrators, it can be especially difficult. There’s learning everyone’s names, developing an efficient teaching plan, getting your classroom or office sorted out, among countless other things needed to be done to adapt to a new environment. Although being a new teacher is difficult, it can be even more arduous to enter the school not as a teacher, but as a department head. Such is the case of Andrea Macrina, the new Special Education department head at Walpole High School.
Andrea Macrina had been interested in working in the Special Education field for a long time. She said, “I gravitated towards working with students who had social and emotional issues.” Her dedication to the field lead her to Bridgewater State University for her undergraduate degree and Boston University for her Master’s Degree in Special Education.
Ms. Macrina, looking for work, heard about the administration position in the Special Education department at Walpole High School, which was something that she was interested in to develop her career. She said, “I heard very good things about [the Walpole] community,” which finalized her decision to apply for the department head at WHS.
As the department head, Ms. Macrina hopes to improve the Special Education department at WHS. She said she “hopes to improve upon the standards that teachers are teaching in the classrooms”. She also hopes to consolidate a few program. Another goal of hers is to simply align the curriculum with the state standards and make sure the department runs smoothly and successfully. She is starting to be involved in the Best Buddies program at the high school.
Ms. Macrina says that working at the high school is a very different experience from her past work. She started her Special Education career by working with residential programs outside of school until she worked her way into a public school career. She said, “[The public school experience] is a different experience, different people, different job responsibility, so it’s different from where I was before.” So far, she enjoys working at the high school. Her favorite part of the new job is working with the students. She is well-adjusted to her new administrative position and speaks often with the teachers in the department.
As the weeks of school go by and October passes into November, the new teachers along with the freshmen slowly adjust to the school schedule as it becomes the new normal. While she may have many things to adjust to in this new environment, every day gets easier for Andrea Macrina — the new figurehead of the Special Education Department.
