Students at one of New England’s biggest school districts are back in class this week, marking a new school year in Springfield. District leadership hopes to build on last year’s progress - all while keeping tabs on the national picture.
Kindergarten and preschool start next week, but on Monday, grades 1-12 were back on school grounds in Springfield, like the Warner School off of Parker Street.
Warner is home to about 230 students, including 1st grader Nazari Johnson. Lined up with his peers, he’s about ready to march in as his dad, Richard Johnson, looks on.
“He's ready to go - had a little hard time getting him up this morning … he's still summer lagging,” he joked.
In Nazari’s case, school never ended – the 6-year-old’s father runs a daycare while his mom’s a math teacher. He was one of many students to be seen off not just by parents that morning, but the district’s leadership as well, including Springfield Superintendent Dr. Sonia Dinnall.
Monday also marked Dinnall’s second school year as the head of Springfield Public Schools. She tells WAMC her first year featured plenty of learning on her end in the district of over 60 schools. She adds more learning is to come, on top of bearing down on ongoing goals.
“My goal for the school year is to increase early literacy, we want our kids reading on grade level by the end of second grade. Another goal is to transform middle school - that middle school experience where we bring back joy into the classroom,” she said. “We're bringing back Algebra I into the middle school, so we're making sure that the rigor is there, as well as more hands on career development in the middle school.”
In a district where student achievement is “partially meeting state expectations” in many areas, Dinnall and others see the mid-grades as an opportunity to boost learning.
She adds the district’s looking to build on last year’s achievements. Dinnall detailed some of the highlights to teachers during Friday’s convocation ceremony, broadcast by Focus Springfield.
“… because you believed, over 50 percent of our schools made measurable gains in the MCAS this past school year,” she said. “Our FAFSA completion rate increased by 19 percentage points with some of our schools reaching and exceeding 90 percent because you believed.”
It's achievements that have come, in-part, as the district and others kept tabs on federal funding battles. Since early 2025, various grants, programs and allocated funding have been the subject of spending freezes and clawbacks by the Trump administration.
The district felt some of the worst of it when $47 million in unspent COVID relief funds were clawed back in spring – money that largely made its way back to the city thanks to state assistance and a successful lawsuit headed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Dinnall says her focus right now is on what’s happening in SPS classrooms – but that the national picture looms large.
“At times it really is distracting, and at times it does cause us to question what is yet to come and we are most definitely being very diligent and thoughtful around the budget to ensure that any kind of cuts don't touch the classroom,” she told WAMC Monday. “So we are trying our best to make sure that cuts and adjustments to the budget happen as far away from the classroom as possible.
For now, it’s a time for new backpacks being broken in, class orientations and as Richard Johnson tells WAMC, getting back into a routine where patience from parents can go a long way.
“Just be patient with your kid - it's the first days of school: they're nervous and just remember … one time that was you going into that building on the first day,” he said. “Patience is the key.”
Other communities holding their first day of classes Monday included Holyoke, Lee and Ware.
