Q&A: Next Head of Pine Cobble Wants to Strengthen Ties to Community
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Eric Chapman is coming to town to be the new head of school at Pine Cobble elementary.
But when he talks about his reasons for coming, he sounds like he might have the potential for a position at the local Chamber of Commerce.
"When I came to visit, it was just the beginning of autumn and all the wonderful changes of the trees, and it looked like a movie set, frankly," Chapman said this week. "It didn't feel real.
"I was coming down Route 7, and every turn was a red barn with autumn leaves behind it, or a babbling brook or a horse farm or a dairy farm. I thought, 'This is not real. It had to be a set up of some sort.'
"It only got better from there, when I arrived at campus and met the teachers and the people and the kids."
Chapman has been an educator and administrator for a quarter century, most recently as the assistant head of school for academic programs at the Park School in Brookline. He also has held posts at New York City's St. Mark's School, Calhoun School and Town School.
In the fall, he will take over as the 15th head of school at Pine Cobble, replacing Sue Wells, who is stepping down after 11 years at the helm.
"We are confident that Mr. Chapman will lead Pine Cobble with vision, authenticity, strategic intention, and demonstrable care, and with unwavering commitment to strong academics and principles of inclusion and respect for all members of our community," according to a news release from the school's board of trustees. "We are excited and energized by the promise and potential of Mr. Chapman's appointment as our next Head of School."
Chapman recently sat down with iBerkshires.com to talk about his new position.
Q: Your description of the landscape here brings up a point that I noticed in looking at your previous positions. This is going to be a little bit of a change of culture for you.
Chapman: And it is one that I'm looking forward to.
COVID taught me the value of being present, especially in schools after they were shut down for so long.
The school I'm in now has a beautiful campus and is more suburban, I'd say. That [experience] was the first time I was able to appreciate being part of land.
When Pine Cobble came around, it was the next step of enjoying nature and being part of it. I took all that for granted before COVID, and I never will again.
Q: You have family as well that you're looking to bring up in this area?
Chapman: I have an 11-year-old son, Malcolm, who also is excited about visiting Pine Cobble. Right now, he is going to school in Manhattan, and he is looking forward to having more green space.
Q: Along with congestion and pavement and things like that, urban environments also can bring a little bit more diversity in terms of the population. This area, this corner of Northern Berkshire County, is not necessarily as diverse. I know that diversity work has been a big part of your professional experience and, I gather, is a priority for the folks at Pine Cobble. Is it concerning that the local population does not necessarily reflect that?
Chapman: At all of the schools I've been in, especially in the last 25-30 years, even the term diversity has changed its meaning from tolerance to inclusion and now belonging.
I see different things when I think about it.
I was looking at a few different schools at the same time I was looking at Pine Cobble. The feeling there was unique as far as how invested people were in all kinds of diversity, with arts in the Berkshires, making sure all kids are seen.
Racial diversity seems like the area is looking to have more of, including at the college. But there are also other parts of diversity: economic diversity, interest of people in having conversations about what it means to have acceptance was important to me.
My son is also a big theater kid, and that was appealing to me. The area is very much like New York and Boston. It has this big arts piece which sometimes is important in helping kids belong.
Q: The announcement of your appointment that the school sent out mentions that you have an interest in fostering ties between schools and communities, which is sometimes an issue for private schools that sometimes can feel a little disconnected from the community at large, is it not?
Chapman: It always confuses me why that is. We're part of the community. We bring in kids from the community. A lot of the families were raised there.
I always wanted to connect to the places where kids go on weekends, where they play sports, and where they go to the theater.
When they see their head of school at different events on the weekends, it gives them a smile. They're also a little confused sometimes. They say, 'Wait, the head of school is talking to my parents outside of school. Is that allowed?' Then they're happy. And you learn what drives them on top of that.
Sometimes that means walking down the block and seeing how far they commute from. Sometimes it's seeing a student on campus and saying, 'You get here that early?' and you learn about their home life. Or you learn how an individual student might stay late every day. To me, that gives me a fuller picture of the child's health.
Q: Your teaching background looks like most of your time in the classroom was in the upper grades, upper elementary, junior high. How do you feel about the step of being head of school at an institution that has classes from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade?
Chapman: Because my teaching has been in seventh and eighth grade for the core part of my career, I really make it my business to be part of classrooms for the younger grades. I'm continuing to learn all the time.
The best part of it is listening to the kids. I really try not to be the guy who is preaching all the time but listening.
Q: You already mentioned the pandemic, but one can't really talk about anything these days without mentioning COVID-19, and that is especially true in education. What if any lessons, do you think educators learned from that experience as we, hopefully, are able to get back to normal?
Chapman: First of all, knock on wood because it always seems like we're hearing about the next variant.
COVID really did teach me a lot about understanding what students are going through at different stages of development. We quickly learned that Zoom was not always going to work.
My wife is an educator as well, on the younger end, third grade. She also helped inform me about what would work and didn't work and what people respond to. You have to start with the experts, who are the teachers, and make connections to school and home.
When it first happened, we thought we'd be shut down for a week or a couple of weeks. At my current school, we were shut down for two or three months, the remainder of the school year. How do you pivot? How do you get ready for fluency for all kids? How do you make sure they have the supplies that they need?
It was a good reminder that we had the true gambit of families who are at the school. We had some families who lost their jobs pretty quickly, some who had food insecurity issues. We thought about what we could do as a school to help them.
How do you prepare for inequities? Some people have pre-existing health concerns. Being present in the moment, thinking about how you can be flexible and pivot for that and not forgetting the true diversity of experiences kids have as they come to our school. One child, I remember talking to, was nervous about coming back because they had a grandparent who was immune compromised, and they pick up the child or take care of them on the weekends. Once I learned their story, that could help me adjust.
Q: Pine Cobble had a different issue to work through in the past year when a former teacher was charged with assaulting a student. Do you feel like the school has work to do in maintaining the trust of its families?
Chapman: Relationships really are the key. I've been very impressed with the people at Pine Cobble now helping to heal the community, support the community on a day-to-day basis. I'm going to try to take the baton from them and continue next year to respect the great work they've already done.
I would love to say I've never heard of this at other schools, but unfortunately, it has. Schools are faced with questions about how you heal the community – both the individual and the larger community.
I'm impressed with how they've been handling it.
Q: In terms of building bridges to the larger community, are there specific things you've been able to do at schools in the past to do that work?
Chapman: It's not necessarily marketing and admissions but just being part of the community again. How do we have events again now that public health conditions allow it. How do we be a part of the community – breaking down boundaries, some imagined and some not. We need to get out there, get to meet people, maybe even have people learn about the school and come on campus.
A lot of this is pre-COVID, but we'd say, 'Here is a play we're having and want the community to come see it,' or, 'Here is an event we're having that we can host.'
Sometimes it's much more targeted, like, 'Here is an open house for this segment of the community.' They might come with pre-conceived notions, but let's have some coffee or some tea. Let's have this event and enjoy it.
A lot of the schools I've been in have been in suburban environments. Once those doors open, it feels better and feels more comfortable. I'm hoping COVID will let us do that.
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