In early July, the Springfield School Committee welcomed the district’s new superintendent. Dr. Sonia Dinnall, a longtime district educator, was selected to lead Springfield Public Schools, one of the largest districts in New England.
Dinnall says she has been getting acquainted with different facets of the new role – overseeing a district of some 66 schools and just under 24,000 students.
Replacing the now-retired Daniel Warwick, the former Springfield teacher and principal was approved after a months-long search.
Speaking with WAMC two weeks in, she says a lot of her start has involved listening to some of the district’s 4,500 employees.
“Several meetings, lots of listening and learning - lots of learning on my part,” she said. “And collaborating. Collaborating with those who have been here for quite some time, collaborating with those who are willing to help us move the district forward - just lots of opportunities to listen and learn, and, really, to build positive, effective relationships within the district as well as without”
Dinnall is the first woman and first Black woman to lead the district. A daughter of Jamaican parents, Dinnall was born and raised in Springfield and attended schools such as Memorial, Talmadge, Kiley, and Classical High School.
She went on to attend nearby Westfield State – soon finding the spark to pursue a career in education.
“I was a double-major at Westfield State, so biology and psychology were both my majors, and I needed a little money during winter of my sophomore year, and someone suggested that, since I already had 60 college credits under my belt, that was a minimum requirement to be a sub in Springfield Public Schools, so I applied to become a sub and I began subbing and absolutely fell in love with teaching,” Dinnall recounted. “I started teaching Sunday School at 13-years-old, but then I really got bitten by the teaching bug when I became a substitute teacher, and it was primarily in middle school that I fell in love.”
Substituting for a number of subjects, Dinnall says her earliest years as a teacher centered around middle school. Before that, though – opportunities for further studies presented themselves – leading to a full-time role at Springfield Public Schools.
“… when I received a call from Carlton Pickron, who was a professor at Westfield State, I believe he later went on to be a vice president at Westfield State, he called me to see if I wanted to get my master’s in education because it was part of someone’s dissertation to increase the number of Black and brown people in education and in teaching,” she said. “So, I thought about it for a minute - I had just finished working as a sub, was in love with it, just graduated from Westfield State - wasn’t really clear if I wanted to continue to pursue a medical career or if I wanted to pursue psychology in some way. So then, I said, ‘Yes.’”
“I went to UMass, I applied to the GRE, did all that I needed to do, got accepted and then two years later, I was hired at a huge education fair in Boston, and it was Dr. Bryant Robinson at that time, and I want to say Charles Council - from Springfield, who traveled to Boston - it was a huge recruiting fair and they hired me in April of 1991 and I graduated may ‘91, and started at Forest Park [Middle School] in the fall of ‘91.”
Lessons learned in the classroom went well beyond teaching tectonic plates and the elements, she says.
“It was challenging and rewarding all at the same time - I knew my content, it wasn't a matter of the content knowledge, it was a matter of navigating 13- and 14-year-olds, and understanding what made them tick even though they didn't understand what made them tick because they were in the throes of adolescence,” she said. “And so, really - understanding how to be patient and extending grace to them even at their early age, but yet being firm and fair. So understanding that … you have to keep a big box of tissue on your desk, because someone just broke up with somebody, and that's a little bit more than igneous rock and metamorphic rock and sedimentary rock. So, when your heart is broken, you don't really care about anything about earth science.”
“So, really - being patient understanding that sometimes you have to mend the heart before you can get to their minds, and just really giving myself the space to grow as a new educator,” she said.
Dinnall says over time, leadership at Forest Park Middle School recognized her abilities to work with students, leading to a counselor role. For a decade, her work would continue and she eventually became a department chair.
“Once I got bitten by the teaching bugs so many years earlier, now I got bitten by the admin bug,” she explained. “So, I really was looking for an opportunity to continue with administration, and… out of the blue, Yolanda Johnson was going on maternity leave and she called me and asked if I would be the acting director at Central Office in 2007. And, lo and behold, I came down as the acting director, she returned from maternity leave, I stayed on as supervisor, and then I made my exit in 2010 to Hartford Public Schools.”
Heading to Hartford and working in Connecticut for a decade, Dinnall served as Executive Director of College and Career Readiness for Hartford Public Schools – before another opportunity arose and Dinnall found herself back in Springfield, serving as Principal of the High School of Commerce for three years.
Between that time and her hiring as superintendent, Dinnall also worked as the Chief of Family and Community Engagement for the Springfield Empowerment Zone Partnership.
It’s a non-profit organization that partners with the district and state to help support more than 5,000 students across “16 underperforming middle and high schools” in the city, per the Zone’s website.
“They play an integral role in Springfield Public Schools, because all of the students belong to the City of Springfield, and all of the students, regardless of Zone support, or Springfield Public Schools support - I am committed to ensuring that all of our students receive the same levels of support, because they all deserve it,” Dinnal said. “And we want to make sure that we strengthen that partnership, and we learn from each other, grow together and lift education throughout the whole city together as a partnership.”
Having seen much of the school district inside and out, Dinnall says while there is work to be done, there are strengths in Springfield that she hopes to build on in the years ahead.
“I would definitely say the district does many things well. I believe that the district has a team of dedicated professionals who are truly committed to the academic success, and emotional well-being of our students,” Dinnall said. “I believe that the system has done a great job in creating learning opportunities with the universal pre-K program. That was definitely innovative and a stroke of genius on the part of my predecessor, and I'm looking forward to us building on that foundation and just really taking early literacy to the next level, statewide. I'm looking forward to being a model for the state in early literacy - I believe that the district also does a very good job at their resources and budgeting. It is an award-winning budget department and I applaud the folks on that team who have been fiscally responsible and very careful with taxpayers’ dollars.”
Asked what learning gaps or district issues have her attention, Dinnall said in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing the academic slide seen across the country remains critical.
That includes embracing what’s known in education as the Mutli-Tiered System of Support, or MTSS.
“I love Tier One instruction - I believe the best way to move a district forward is to focus on Tier One instruction, focus on the core, and when you focus on the core, and ensure that all of the components are within the core - scaffolding, text sets, differentiation, checking for understanding, common assessments - things of that nature. When you have a strong core, you are able to then close several of the gaps that we are currently seeing.”
“If we approach instruction from an intervention lens, then we miss out on the things that we need to focus on when you're looking at the core of instruction,” the superintendent continued. “Intervention should really stay within that RTI triangle, under that MTSS umbrella, and making sure that we are delivering a strong core to the 80 percent, and then seeing that maybe that … Tier Two interventions have to support 10-15 percent, and then Tier Three is then that 5 percent, and so really focusing on strong Tier One core instruction, using standard-driven, rigorous grade-level task to reinforce learning, elevate the skillset to also being grade level - I believe that will go a long way to closing some of the gaps and decreasing some of the COVID slide that we're still working to recover from.”
Another priority for Dinnall – bolstering community engagement.
“Truly embracing parents as co-decisionmakers - making sure that they're not just sitting at the table, but sitting at the table and [we’re] respecting their voice, and not just respecting their voice, but incorporating the suggestions and the ideas and the solutions that they come up with,” she said. “So, empowering families to be part of the solution. They have been the teachers of our students for the first five years of their lives, before formal education, before any student stepped into a classroom. We have to honor that and respect that.”
Dinnall added that as her first 100 days continue, she plans on releasing a public document outlining action steps she plans to take in the near-future.
With summer school already underway, Dinnall’s first full school year as superintendent begins Aug. 26.
