Four School Buildings and Two Principals Equal a Recipe for Success

Two West Roxbury elementary school principals excel as they encounter the daily challenges of strengthening their respective school communities by bridging two sites including family, teachers, and students into a tight knit, single school community.

Eileen Nash, principal of the for the past eight years, was the newly appointed principal to the last year. The Ohrenberger School, which will teach grades 2-8 this upcoming school year, is approximately 1.4 miles walking distance from Beethoven Elementary, which currently teaches grades K-2.

“I had a vision for eight years with the Beethoven school,” says Nash. “Now I’m building my culture with new students and families. Starting at a beginning place versus an already established school presents a new challenge.”

Principal Jerome Doherty also finds himself facing the same challenges. While the continuing growth in the past three years with the addition of a sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, Doherty strives to create a sense of community between the Lower and Upper Kilmer schools.

Prior to working as an academy director at a pilot school in the Boston Public School system, he worked as a music teacher in New Jersey traveling between two buildings for four years. 

That previous experience helped Doherty with his current principalship, “That certainly made me aware of some of the challenges of working in two locations.”

Specific care and attention is required of teachers and principals when it comes to nurturing the educational needs of today’s youths. 

“The difference between two campuses and one campus is that it limits availability with directivity with the kids,” Nash says stressing the importance on interacting with students.

That interaction is reinforced with the notion of providing care for the students as they transition between the elementary and middle school years.

“The obvious difference is in the age groups accompanied by the students’ different developmental needs,” says Doherty. “For example, the Upper School has students transitioning to adolescence, so the typical issues of puberty and relationships arise.”

Aside from the students, meeting with parents and teachers can also become obstacles as a principal of two different schools. 

Principal Doherty prefers to keep a full personal office space as a home base in one of his buildings with a conference table for meetings and such in his second office. Principal Nash uses both her offices as meeting places for parents, teachers, and students although she prefers the air-conditioned room at the Ohrenberger School, but she does like the familiarity of the Beethoven School housing a comfortable couch. 

Each principal splits their time accordingly between the two schools. Nash says, she must be “present and a visible figures to the kids.” 

Nash and Doherty may seem like superheroes, leaping from school to school in a single bound, but they both show admiration and appreciating of their vice principals and school staff.

“Our assistant principal is always at the opposite location as me, and we also have a teacher-leader who serves as the person in charge in the absence of me or the assistant principal,” comments Doherty.

Moreover, Nash says, “We have two vice principals. Both are stable and at the schools all of the time,” similar to Doherty’s vice principal. “They are the point people,” she explains.

Nash and Doherty, two of the few people who run two schools located in two separate areas in Boston Public Schools, are succeeding at their jobs.

While they both implement programs between their respective schools to garner community interest between the two schools, they both can agree that being a part of two separate schools merging to become one is a joyous and career satisfying achievement.