MARBLEHEAD — Marblehead Veterans Middle School principal Matt Fox appreciates being named Middle School Principal of the Year by the Massachusetts School Administrators Association.
But he really can’t slow down enough to savor it. There’s too much to do.
“The simple fact that I received this recognition is a testament to my staff and how it has tried to overcome the challenges and make this as normal a year as possible,” said Fox, 49, who was appointed to the position 10 years ago. “We couldn’t have done anything without our faculty and our staff.”
The challenges, of course, relate to COVID-19 and how schools had to pivot on a dime to teach children in the midst of a pandemic.
“That would be the biggest challenge I’ve faced in my career,” said Fox.
It’s been a varied career. After receiving his master’s in education at Salem State, he spent his first two years as a social studies teacher at a middle school in Cortez, Colo. From there, he traveled to Massachusetts to teach the same subject at North Reading High School.
His first administrative position was at Georgetown Middle School, followed by stints at Miles River Middle School in Hamilton and, simultaneously with that, Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School.
Along the way, he said, he discovered an affinity for the middle school years.
“It’s a fun age group,” he said. “I started at a high school (and then went to) middle school. That’s where I’ve been for 14 years.”
For one thing, he said, it’s never dull.
“Every day changes,” he said. “(The kids) keep you on their toes. It’s a great age to work with. We’re only a two-year school to high school.”
The rhythm of that transition was disrupted greatly by the pandemic, and the biggest challenge was to fill the void, Fox said.
“The first thing I thought of is ‘how are we still going to provide our students with an education?’” he said. “It (the pandemic shutdown) started out as two weeks. Then it was another two weeks. Then it was the rest of the year.
“The big question was, ‘how are we going to keep our students connected to the school? How do I provide our teachers with what they need to do their jobs?’ That was the big focus.”
That proved to be a challenge to Fox, perhaps more than most. He says his favorite part of the job is working with students. And, he said, no amount of human interaction is too small to affect those who are at the age where discovering themselves and their identities is crucial, he said.
“The simple ‘hello’ in the morning that I or a teacher say, we may be among the few adults children speak to. Stopping and listening. Little things like that can go such a long way,” he said.
“Middle-school students are very relationship-based,” he said. “The more they connect with the school, the more they learn.”
Fox said he didn’t find navigating the pandemic necessarily frustrating, just challenging.
“We were working within the parameters of what scientists and the CDC said,” Fox said. “That was the reality. It’s been an exercise of trying to make connections with students that’s completely different than anything that’s been done before.”
The process Fox went through to get the award, he said, was arduous.
“It was a long process,” he said. “I was nominated by a couple of folks. Then, the association reaches out and asks you if you want to continue.
“They ask you to write a couple of essays, and if they like what you wrote they send you for an interview,” he said. “Finally, they called and said they’d selected me. They didn’t give a reason why, per se. I know there are hundreds of principals deserving of this.”
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].