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IPSWICH — “It’s a bittersweet time for me,” said Sheila Halloran as she counts down the last few days to her retirement on June 30.
Principal of the Paul F. Doyon Memorial School, she has been “36 years in education that I have loved.” The last 10 years of her career were in Ipswich running the school.
“But I’m ready to move on to my next adventure, which is retirement,” she said. “I am very proud to say I am leaving the building in good hands [with incoming principal Sarah Goodale-O’Brien] and staff.”
“My plan is to bike, kayak, golf, sit on the beach, visit friends and family. And then I’ll repeat,” she laughed. Her husband will retire in a couple of years, and they plan to do some traveling at that point, she added.
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“I love the culture at Doyon,” Halloran said. She said she worked to empower staff to unlock children’s potential, and there is a very supportive parent community, she added.
Halloran took the reins at Doyon from Ken Cooper, who held the position for 22 years. Halloran said he mentored her, and she now says, “I’m fortunate that he became not only a mentor, but a friend.”
She shared his goal of striving to unlock the students’ “potential as learners and young people,” and has now watched many graduate high school and college. “The idea of putting children first is something he shared, and I share that with everyone I know,” she said.
Asked about the high points of her tenure, Halloran said those are the students, staff, and community.
The low point was the outcome of the school building project, she said. A lot of work went in to it, and it was disappointing not to have it proceed, she added.
“We worked really hard for that for our children.” The Doyon school may be 60 years old, but “the love and character of this building speaks for itself,” Halloran said. Nevertheless, “It’s still an old building.”
The principal began her working life as a counselor before she made the switch to teaching.
She was drawn to education ever since she was a little girl, she said. “I loved to go to school, and I loved to learn, and I had wonderful teachers growing up. It was what I wanted to do.”
After seeing counselors at work in high school, Halloran said she thought she would prefer that line of work. But education kept pulling her back. “Then I recognized that the counseling degree would always be used in the education field.”
She started as a student teacher in Georgetown and moved to Exeter, N.H., before spending 20 years in Westchester, N.Y., which she said was very similar to Ipswich in terms of size and demographics. Halloran was a teacher there, then an assistant principal.
But she wanted to move back to this area to be near her parents, now in their 80s, and applied for the position in Ipswich a little over 10 years ago.
Post mortem
Asked how she would approach a new school (or two) project, Halloran recommended the town settle on a location. “Whatever they choose, they need to decide on a site first. The community has to come together on that — what’s best for our children — because the buildings are old.”
Halloran noted that the Doyon school celebrated its 50th anniversary just after she started there; the Winthrop school is a few years older.
But she said she has no regrets. “I think I gave it my all. I think I live with my heart on my sleeve, and I try my best. I’m proud to have created this community of learners.”
“It’s been my passion, it’s been my life for 36 years,” she said. But family should come first, she added. Once home life is stable, the educators can devote their energies to their work, she said.
Asked about her educational philosophy, Halloran replied, “Everyone is a learner, no matter how old they are. Everyone has strengths.”
Educators should give kids the tools they need to tackle life. “They don’t recognize their own potential and they may not know their passions yet,” she said. That’s why it is important to expose students to a wide range of subjects, from physical education to the arts to science, to give them a well-rounded base of knowledge to work from.
June 15, 2021 at 06:20PM
http://thelocalne.ws/2021/06/15/sheila-halloran-plans-to-take-it-easy-then-take-it-easy-again/
Sheila Halloran plans to take it easy, then take it easy again - The Local Ne.ws
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