The following statement read at NPS Staff convocation on 8/26/24 is shared with permission from the president of the Northampton Association of School Employees.
Good Morning everyone,
I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you all today. Thank you NEF and VINS for always supporting our educators! For those of you that don’t know me yet, I am Andrea Egitto. I teach kindergarten at Ryan Road school, and I am the president of the Northampton Association of School Employees. That is all of us!
I want to wish you all a happy new year. Welcome to all our new staff, you have joined a district where we support each other every day. Our association is made up of administrators, licensed staff, para educators, clerical members, custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers. Every one of you has important work to do that impacts the lives of our students every day. So welcome and let’s celebrate our new year filled with hope and joy.
As Dr. Bonner said, last year was a difficult one. I am going to name the elephant in the room. We lost many valuable members of our school communities and the fear and worry that many of you experienced was real and has created deep wounds. We will support each other as we heal these wounds, and as we overcome the gaslighting and the insults to our profession and our passion.
We will stand together and support each other, our students, and school communities even when it’s hard, but don’t let anyone silence you when it comes to advocating for them.
Speaking up doesn’t make you aggressive.
Speaking out doesn’t make you rude.
Speaking the truth doesn’t make you divisive.
It makes you an advocate for what you know is best for your students.
One of the things that makes Northampton strong is the wide range of educators and staff. In this room, we have people just starting out and people that have been here for a long time.
Shout out how many years you have been in the NPS.
1 day, 30+ years and everything in between. We are going to do the hard work because that’s what we do. We are Northampton Public Schools, we will continue to do the hard work, show up for our students and each other, everyday. That’s who we are.
We don’t need to be quiet, we don’t need to change our advocacy. We need to continue to do what we do best. Show up and do the hard work for our school communities and pull in everyone that wants the same.
Many of you will walk into unreasonably large classes this year. We will continue to advocate for small class sizes.
Many of you will not be able to get the intervention or the support your students need. We will continue to advocate for interventionists and counselors in each building at every grade.
Many of you will object to unreasonable assessments, we will continue to advocate to not take up valuable learning time with developmentally inappropriate assessments and we will vote in November to remove the MCAS graduation requirement and soon MCAS altogether.
Many of you will start the year with new administrators. We will welcome them into our school communities and work together with them to make our schools better each day.
We transform every year when we come in fresh after learning and rejuvenating over the summer, when we face a new group of students with new gifts and challenges, and when we work with new colleagues.
Every year requires transformation and we do it with joy.
We are Northampton Public Schools and we’re still here and no matter what people say we will never stop showing up for our students.
I couldn’t do this work without our amazing team of NASE leaders. Thank you all for the work you do. Have a wonderful year and know you can reach out anytime you need anything.
I am so thrilled that the work that we advocated for starting during the pandemic in anti-bias, anti-racist education and restorative practices will continue this year and what better way to start the year than with a presentation from our own students!
Thank you and have a great year!