Elm Hill principal plans June resignation to pursue other options

Elm Hill Primary School Principal Dana Jacobson-Goodhue will be leaving the elementary school in June, after five years as principal.

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2017-02-22 / Front Page Elm Hill principal plans June resignation to pursue other options By TORY JONES toryb@eagletimes.com Dana Jacobson-Goodhue — COURTESY Dana Jacobson-Goodhue — COURTESY SPRINGFIELD — Elm Hill Primary School Principal Dana Jacobson-Goodhue will be leaving the elementary school in June, after five years as principal. “I am so grateful for the time I’ve had,” Jacobson-Goodhue said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, Feb. 21. “It was my first administrative role.” Jacobson-Goodhue said she knew that at some point she would have to decide whether to stay on as a primary school administrator, or to leave or expand that role to other grade levels. The Elm Hill Primary School serves students in grades K-2. Now that she has reached the five-year mark, she has decided to expand her professional career and the age range of students she works with to include other grades, she said. “It has been such a good experience,” she said. Superintendent Zack McLaughlin shared Jacobson-Goodhue’s resignation letter with the Springfield School Board at a board meeting on Monday, Feb. 20. Her resignation will take effect on June 30. McLaughlin said the resignation would not put the district in a bind, and that searches for administrators have begun later in the school year in the past. Jacobson-Goodhue said she is interested in pursuing other options. She is still looking, and did not have immediate plans, she said. She also said that it would be ideal to have another job lined up, but that she wanted to be sure that Springfield parents, teachers and community members had time to prepare for her exit and to interview job applicants, she said on Tuesday. Jacobson-Goodhue signed a contract with the school board in early 2012 to serve as principal at Elm Hill Primary School after a few months as assistant principal and then interim principal at the school. In her resignation request, she asked that the school board agree to release her from the second year of her most recent contract, according to the meeting minutes. School board member Jeanice Garfield moved, with a second by Laura Ryan, to accept Jacobson-Goodhue’s resignation, effective June 30. The school board voted all in favor. Springfield’s Jacobson-Goodhue to leave Elm Hill Rutland Herald | February 22, 2017 By SUSAN SMALLHEER STAFF WRITER Dana Jacobson-Goodhue Elm Hill School Principal Dana Jacobson-Goodhue Elm Hill School Principal SPRINGFIELD — Elm Hill School Principal Dana Jacobson-Goodhue will be leaving at the end of the school year. The Springfield School Board accepted her resignation Monday night, agreeing to let Jacobson-Goodhue out of the second year of her two-year contract. She wanted to expand the age level of the school she administers, she said and is already looking for a position either at a K-5 or K-8 school. There’s nothing like that available in Springfield, she said. Jacobson-Goodhue, who is known by her students as Mrs. J-G, has been principal at the K-2 primary school for the past five years. She had been doing her principal internship and was acting principal when she was tapped for the permanent position in February 2012. Her resignation takes effect at the end of June. The school had gone through four administrators in about six months, she said. “This was my first role as principal, and I always knew I would be here for three to five years,” said Jacobson- Goodhue, who lives with her family in Hartland. “I love the children and the families. It’s sort of a professional choice.” Jacobson-Goodhue said she thought last year about applying for the Union Street School principal job, but felt she still had things to accomplish at Elm Hill. She said the school community is very happy with the leadership of Union Street Principal Nancy Wiese. Before coming to Vermont, Jacobson-Goodhue was a middle school teacher in Connecticut and went back to school to study administration. When she started at Elm Hill, enrollment was about 300, but it dropped, then held steady for the past couple of years and is now about 280 students. “(Average class size is) larger than I would like,” she said. However, the proposed 2017-18 school budget would cut paraprofessionals at Elm Hill in favor of hiring two new classroom teachers in the attempt to bring the class size down from its current average of about 20. “ I really have accomplished what I set out to do,” she said. She said some of the students who are entering primary school in Springfield have higher needs than used to be the case. She pointed to the fact that, five years ago, a large percentage of children born at Springfield Hospital had been exposed to opiates. “ Children now have higher needs, emotional deregulations,” she said. Young students come to school and preschool without the necessary social skills, she said, things like sharing, taking turns or understanding numbers. “They don’t know their letters,” she said. Jacobson-Goodhue said she was resigning even before she had another job so Springfield could start the search process as quickly as possible. “There are lots of good people out there,” she said. Superintendent Zachary McLaughlin told School Board members Monday night that Jacobson-Goodhue’s resignation would give the district enough time to find a new principal for the early grades. He said that while most searches begin in January, he felt the board had enough time to find a good principal.