By STEVEN JUPITER
BRANDON—Michael Ruppel had big shoes to fill coming to Otter Valley last year. Jim Avery had been Principal for so long that an entire generation had never known OV without him. But in his first year, Ruppel wasted no time settling in and getting to know the Otter Valley community.
“I was able to do a lot of learning and get to know people,” said Ruppel in his office at Otter Valley. “I learned what teachers and kids needed. You go from ‘You don’t know what you don’t know’ to ‘You know what you don’t know.’ It’s been incremental.”
“It was a great year,” he continued. “I learned that the staff cares deeply about students and that the student body has a lot to offer the world.”
Having been Assistant Principal at Springfield (VT) High School, Ruppel was familiar with the needs and mindset of high-school students but wasn’t as familiar with middle-school kids. And since OV is a joint high school/middle school, he knew had some work to do.
“OV needs to see itself as two schools,” he said. “We need to develop the middle-school model. Working with those kids is the most fun part of the job for me. I even love middle-school lunch. There’s great energy. Those kids are fun to be around.”
In addition to taking over for a long-term incumbent, Ruppel had the added challenge of steering OV through the post-pandemic transition to in-school learning.
“The pandemic led to loss of community in schools. Things got disrupted,” he said. “It takes time to rebuild. The emphasis moving forward is on rebuilding our community. We have a group of teachers working as a ‘fun committee.’ We’re going to have more school-wide assemblies and advisory groups.”
As if to drive home the point, Ruppel was wearing a baseball jersey with the OV logo on the front and the word “community” on the back.
And as for the nuts-and-bolts work of educating kids, Ruppel said, “I’m a big believer that students need their curriculum to honor them.”
One way to get kids to feel seen and heard is to engage them with issues that affect them directly.
“Maybe kids will go out and investigate problems in their own community and offer solutions,” Ruppel added.
Vocational/technical education will also play a larger role at OV in the coming years.
“Vermont has a robust CTE (‘career technical education’) system,” said Ruppel. “Stafford and Hannaford have a lot of great programs, but starting on that path in the junior or senior year may be too late. Tech Ed teacher Devon Karpak has designed a ‘career prep pathway’ where kids can start taking extra career-prep classes at the end of eighth grade. But we don’t want to close off any pathways. We’re not replacing academics; we’re supplementing them. We’re on pace to accept applications to this program this spring and to start the program next fall.”
Ruppel also noted that OV now has a full-time work-based learning coordinator to help kids with career-focused education.
Another subject that got a fair amount of attention in Ruppel’s first year is the tension surrounding racial and LGBTQ+ issues at OV, with many kids saying that they don’t feel safe at school.
“It’s impossible for the polarization in the country not to play out in schools,” said Ruppel. “But we’re all here to go to school. We all have commonalities. We have Professional Development for our staff in that area. And we’re trying to ramp up our response when racial or gender harassment occurs. We want to provide education as well as discipline. We want to teach, not just punish.”
Given the incidents at Neshobe last year, and even the “prank” that sent local law enforcement scrambling to OV, safety is at the forefront of many kids’ and parents’ minds.
“There’s a big districtwide push regarding safety,” replied Ruppel. “We’re always trying to work on emergency procedures. We’re committed to transparency.”
Echoing Superintendent Hubert, Ruppel talked about the desire to make all OV kids feel like they have a place at school:
“We’re working hard to ensure that every kid feels a sense of belonging here.”
