New Westport superintendent prepares for busy year

After settling into his new role, Superintendent Gary Reese sat down to talk about his goals for the Westport school district.

After settling into his new role, Superintendent Gary Reese sat down to talk about his goals for the Westport school district.

This year, new principals are starting at the Macomber Primary School and the Junior/Senior High School. Stacey Duquette, Westport Elementary’s former assistant principal, is now the school’s interim principal.

“I think my biggest goal is trying to get that group together to help provide support to them around what’s happening in their buildings, but also creating this sense of continuity Pre-K through grade 12,” said Gary Reese of Central Falls, Rhode Island.

Despite the quick hires, Reese said he still wanted to get some input from the community in the process. He got that via a survey for Macomber and the Junior/Senior High that was up for a little over a week and got about 60 to 70 responses each.

He listed about 10 traits and asked people to rank them; among the highest ranked were consistency, continuity and fairness, he said.

He said he values getting into the schools and seeing what’s going on, supporting staff and also helping students have a voice in decision making.

“I think often time students feel like education is happening to them and they’re not part of the process. I want them to see how they can be part of that process and how they can then use that voice in the future,” Reese said.

He’s entered the Westport school district amidst the town moving forward with building a new multi-million dollar junior-senior high school.

“There’s a lot that needs to go on over the next few years to ensure that it’s successful,” he said.

He noted he looks forward to working with new director of curriculum to update the entire curriculum or embed social and emotional concepts into the curriculum, although he needs to get a better idea of what it currently looks like.

Asked about enrollment, Reese said, “That’s always an area of concern.” He said he’s not so much concerned with students going to a vocational-technical school, but more so with students that move on to a neighboring district through school choice.

“I want to make sure that we’re offering everything we can to let people know this is the best place to be,” he said.