Wyman ‘Welcome Back’ Tradition Continues

Continuing a tradition that started with the oldest of her three children, Alison Wackrow went to school this past Thursday morning, a week before school starts. She’s done that for about eight years.

The principal invited students and parents into the elementary school before the school bell officially rings so students can find their classrooms and maybe even meet their teachers.

The school is the .

New Wyman Principal Michelle Zottoli has continued a tradition herself, the “Welcome Back” held by retired principal Paul McQuilkin, Zottoli told Woburn Patch between greeting visitors outside her office.

Zottoli is new to the Wyman principalship but not to the students and staff.  Hired this past spring, she visited classrooms then, she said, and attended several school events, including the school’s end-of-year cookout.

The new Wyman principal comes to Woburn from Lexington, where she taught third and fifth grades and was a part-time assistant principal, she said, for eight years. She also helped plan curriculum for a charter school, she said, and taught second grade in California. She graduated college with a degree in finance.  But “I couldn’t sit at a desk” all day, she said. She had helped at her sister’s Montessori school and “loved working with kids.”  Her husband, John, is a commercial electrician.

Several students asked Zottoli Thursday about her dog, “ Sammy,” a golden retriever about 7 or 8 years old that she rescued from a pound.

One mom welcomed Zottoli.

Wackrow went to the Wyman with her son, Matthew, who will be a third grader there. Her daughter, Katelyn, who will be a sixth grader at the , went with them.

“It’s nice for kids to get the flavor of their classroom,” mom said. Katelyn said she never worried about going to school. Nevertheless, “It’s nice to do this,” she said, “fun to walk around” the school.

Wackrow started going to the Wyman “Welcome Back” when her oldest child, Nicole was a student there. Nicole is a freshman at .

The number of students and adults at this year’s welcome was higher than other years, according to Wackrow. That may be due, she speculated, to having a new principal.

Mom Daniella Lopez brought her son, Stephen Gallagher, who will be a kindergartener at the Wyman, and daughter, Lily Gallagher, to the Wyman Thursday.  He’s “excited, and so ready” to start school, she said, and she’s excited for him.

Megan Hazzard, who will be a second grader at the Wyman, liked visiting her school Thursday. She met her new principal when she was in first grade, she said, and the principal told students, Megan said, that she had a dog.  Some students at the “welcome back” weren’t eager to return to school. But as Megan left her school, she turned to her mother, Beth, and said, “I can’t wait to go to school.”