Chester Elementary School Principal Cindy Walsh retires

Cindy Walsh, principal of Chester Elementary School since 2007, is retiring at the end of the school year to spend more time with her family. Walsh, who received her Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education at State University College of New York at Oneonta and her Master of Science in Elementary Education at the State University College of New York at New Paltz, granted an interview to The Chronicle in which she spoke of her educational philosophy and her time at Chester. She has been an educator since 1982
How would you describe your leadership style?
I try to build consensus. But I also understand that a good leader finds leaders in the staff. When you have identified a teacher’s talent you want to let them take their talent and lead the initiative—for two reasons: one, it makes your life a lot easier and the second reason is it empowers them to be leaders themselves.
What advice would you give to new teachers in first year?
This business is all about relationships. You need to have relationships with your students; they need to know you care about them and if they know you care about them, they will follow you anywhere. The same thing with your staff; you need to be a human who cares about their wellbeing and their family’s wellbeing.
What were the most difficult problems that you encountered as principal?
I think the toughest problem is when you have to talk to a parent about their child having some unique needs and they’re not ready or willing to hear it. That’s tough.
How have you dealt with problems of bullying? We’ve been proactive in having programs that prevent bullying or teach children that bullying is not the way to go. We’ve had some isolated incidents obviously—that’s part of growing up. But bullying isn’t our thing here. We’re a very accepting school. The children are very kind to one another. We foster responsibility and respect as part of our PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention System) program. I think you always have to build them into your classroom and your school day. But our families are very strong and support us in what we do.
What is an ideal school environment?
Walsh said when she walks into a classroom, she always looks for children who are engaged in what they’re learning.
They’re up out of the chair, they’re on their elbows leaning into something exciting...concentrating so hard on something very exciting; an event, learning-whatever is going on. I don’t like seeing learners stuck in chairs; I like seeing learners up and doing and wondering about the world and experiencing events. I think, if anything, the STEM initiative and our project-based learning initiative all come out of the belief that children learn by doing. When kids are given an actual problem to solve they love that kind of learning and then they have to learn the subject areas that are part of that problem solving.
What Innovations have you brought to the school?
Bringing STEM and Robotics to our school was one of my big projects. We are midway in creating a maker space and I’d like to say I had a hand in that. It’s not finished. A Maker Space is an area in a school where children will have the freedom to learn in a different way, a learning space that looks very different from the classroom. There will be a Lego creation area and a small performance area, glass boards to problem solve on, comfortable chairs. A computer side will have a green screen area for video productions, and of course, all of our robotics will move into that area.
How do you think technology has changed learning?
It certainly has made everything so accessible to students and information is coming at them at such a rapid pace. It made learning a little more fun; with gamification-when you can turn learning multiplication facts into a game it makes learning more fun.
Do you still use textbooks? Very few. We still read books. [For the recent program,] One school, one book, so many parents were so excited about that and thanked us for bringing the joy of sharing a family book (The Tale of Despereaux), so that was great.
Technology has made (learning) more fun, but harder for teachers; we can’t compete with things that light up and beep. {Students] also interact on Google classroom and in these forums that don’t require a lot of face-to-face.
What have been your greatest achievements as principal?
You have to keep up and innovate. The STEM instruction and the maker space and the PBL (project based learning) that I brought here. Just understanding that a school culture of kindness and acceptance and respect—I think that the staff would say that’s a valued [contribution]. I always say I judge how successful a school is by seeing are the kids running in or are they running out? And every morning, I see 400 kids running into this building. And when they leave, they’re strolling out to the buses. And at the end of the year, when they leave for that last time, there are little faces in the window crying.
Do you have any concerns about the future of education? I think we have to learn how to harness technology; how to tame the beast. And understand that it’s a double-edged sword. It can be a great tool, but it’s not the only tool. We also have to learn to harness the social aspect of it.Not so much for the little guys, but when they get to 4th and 5th grade, they’re already starting to be on social media outlets. What happens at home ends up in my classroom.
It’s a great little school. I call it Orange County’s private public school. We’re a small community; we know everybody. The teachers are amazing here; they work very hard and they’re very dedicated.