The Falconer: Interview by Sadie Biehl
Mr. MacDonald is the Dean of Students for grades 10-12 here at Mashpee High School. He is retiring at the end of this year so The Falconer wanted to ask him a few questions about his career, this past year, and his plans for retirement.
The Falconer: Can you tell me about your career leading up to working in Mashpee?
Mr. MacDonald: Sure, thirty years ago I started out in a grants funded program at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School. The grant funded program had to do with working with adults and trying to locate them jobs. Retrain them, and find them jobs. Once I got into Cape Cod Tech, I ended up making relationships with the superintendent and the principal. When a physical education job opened up, they ended up hiring me for Physical Education, which is my degree, Health and Physical Education. So, I was there for maybe seven or eight years. Then, I went back to school and got my license as a school administrator. Then, I got a job at Nauset Regional High School as an Assistant Principal, where I worked there for almost eight years. I was looking for another opportunity, and somewhere along the line I met Mr. Ballestracci. He was becoming a principal at the same time I was and we just happened to hit it off. He had said to me that if I was ever interested, to see if there was ever a position open to look him up and see what was going on. So things didn’t work out at Nauset High School the way I thought they would, so I met up with Mr. Ballestracci and we had a great talk. A position opened up here, the Dean of Students position, so I came and interviewed, he hired me, and I have been here ever since.
Mr. MacDonald is the Dean of Students for grades 10-12 here at Mashpee High School. He is retiring at the end of this year so The Falconer wanted to ask him a few questions about his career, this past year, and his plans for retirement.
The Falconer: Can you tell me about your career leading up to working in Mashpee?
Mr. MacDonald: Sure, thirty years ago I started out in a grants funded program at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School. The grant funded program had to do with working with adults and trying to locate them jobs. Retrain them, and find them jobs. Once I got into Cape Cod Tech, I ended up making relationships with the superintendent and the principal. When a physical education job opened up, they ended up hiring me for Physical Education, which is my degree, Health and Physical Education. So, I was there for maybe seven or eight years. Then, I went back to school and got my license as a school administrator. Then, I got a job at Nauset Regional High School as an Assistant Principal, where I worked there for almost eight years. I was looking for another opportunity, and somewhere along the line I met Mr. Ballestracci. He was becoming a principal at the same time I was and we just happened to hit it off. He had said to me that if I was ever interested, to see if there was ever a position open to look him up and see what was going on. So things didn’t work out at Nauset High School the way I thought they would, so I met up with Mr. Ballestracci and we had a great talk. A position opened up here, the Dean of Students position, so I came and interviewed, he hired me, and I have been here ever since.
The Falconer: In what ways is Mashpee High School different than other schools you have worked at?
Mr. MacDonald: It’s a great combination of the Technical High School and Nauset High School. So in the Technical High School, you know there are academics and shops. The focus for most students, male or female, is their future. So they look at a shop that they may be going into a job with after they graduate. The educational component helps them continue to learn in an academic setting and reinforce their skills as they go into a shop. Nauset is basically geared academically, so if a student wants to go to Harvard, or Yale, or a big college, they would probably stay at Nauset to get their degree, graduate, and apply to a big college. So, looking at Mashpee, it’s a combination of shops and academics. I thought it was a great fit, I like the people that are here, the administrative people, the people that I have met from Mashpee, and when I finally got here, it was great to make relationships with the kids.
The Falconer: Reflecting on this past school year, what did you find the most challenging and how did you overcome those challenges?
Mr. MacDonald: I think the most challenging thing was that you have parents and students not comfortable coming to school. The biggest fear, I think in most people’s minds, coming back to school, was getting infected or getting sick. That was the biggest challenge, having to reassure faculty, staff, and students, that if you kept your mask on, washed your hands, did the things that you should do, things would be alright. The administration, Mrs. DeBoer, Mr. Balestracci, and all of the other principles, they weren’t about to ask people to come back if we were still at a high level of COVID, so once the infectious rate started to drop and people started doing things that they needed to do, personally, it was a great time to take a look at reopening school. And I have to tell you, I loved the way we handled it, because my daughter is in Boston, and they were behind us, in returning kids to school, and kids need to be in school. But, you know, it was good, it was a challenging year for all of us, and I’m sure some parents and students are still concerned, as all of us are, but it seems to have worked out well.
The Falconer: What are some positives that came out of this year that you may not have been expecting?
Mr. MacDonald: Well I am a positive person, so I was expecting anything that is positive. The thing that I was really thankful for was that with parents and students, the flow of coming back to school seemed good. To the best of my knowledge, everybody has been healthy, I have never had to stop a student and tell them to put their mask on, nobody has ever given me a hard time. It’s been nice having everybody on the same page because sometimes you get people that don’t want to do that. And I have to remind students sometimes but I don’t think it’s that they don’t want to, I just think it’s that they forget.
The Falconer: How does it make you feel that your last year of working here was during COVID, and not after things got back to normal?
Mr. MacDonald: So, I am a positive person, and when you look at the issue of COVID, and students being in school or not being in school, or faculty members being in school, it was challenging for everybody, but for me, it just made another a challenge of how to reassure people that things are good. People are doing what they should be doing, getting vaccinated, keeping the mask on, all of these things that people need to do. The challenge has been keeping the motivation. If you put a mask on and you're coming to school, it’s a distraction. But like I said, the faculty, students, and staff have been great. It’s been a challenging year for everybody, but a great year in my mind.
The Falconer: As you are about to move into retirement, what are the most significant changes in education from when you first started until now?
Mr. MacDonald: That’s a great question, so when I first started, there wasn’t MCAS. Shortly after I started and we settled on MCAS, we had to sit our students, faculty, and parents down and say, “Look, this is a high level test. If your child doesn’t pass MCAS, there is a chance they don’t go on to the next grade.” And that was a shock to some people, because if you do all the work in the classroom, the expectation is, you will be promoted to the next grade. Now, all of the sudden, you have to pass this high level test. The test is a combination of what the student should have learned and a little bit of all the years they have gone through in education. That was a challenge for me, because you have some students that learn differently. Not all students test well, they really don’t. I’ll give you an example, I had one student in a previous school that had As and Bs all the way through, but when it came to the test, they struggled, and they didn’t do that well. So instead of that A or B, they would get a C, because they get nervous. We had to work through that and work with them. One thing about any school I have been to is that the students have been phenomenal. You get a teacher saying that a student is working to their capacity, and if a student is working to their capacity, usually there is something outside of school that is an obstacle, or a distraction.
The Falconer: What do you plan on doing in retirement?
Mr. MacDonald: Spending a lot of time with my grand-kids. My grandchildren live in Maryland, they’re six and four. They are just getting into sports. My oldest son is a football coach down at the Naval Academy, that’s why they live in Maryland. His wife is a nurse. My perfect scenario would be to have my family around me all the time. Where I can see my grandchildren all of the time, but obviously I can't. When I retire, I’ll probably spend six or seven weeks in Maryland. Probably from mid-August to the beginning of October, because that would be a lot of football I get to see. I will get to see my grandchildren in recreational sports.
The Falconer: What accomplishments are you most proud of from your career?
Mr. MacDonald: When I first started, I had a degree in Physical Education and Health. Physical Education was something that I really loved to teach and do. My family was young, and they started to grow, and the superintendent of Cape Cod Tech came to me and said they had an administrator position that I should apply for because I want to build good relationships with the kids. One of the problems is that I didn’t have the education, or the degree, for administration, so I would have to go back to school. I was teaching and coaching at that time, and I didn’t want to go back to school. The superintendent told me that as long as I completed the courses he would give me the job, and he did. This is the way he sold it, he said, “Right now you're a Physical Educator and a coach. Why did you get into teaching?” I told him I wanted to impact in a positive manner with students. He said, “When I take a look at your schedule as a teacher and a coach, you are impacting maybe one third of the kids. If you truly love education, why don’t you impact all of the students' lives by becoming an administrator?” So I agreed to the job, and he was right. It’s not that I see every student, but in a way I get to sit with the administrative team that sets the policies and procedures, I get to touch base with kids and go into different classrooms, and get involved in sports. So I see a lot more kids, and I can impact them by how I feel the policies or procedures should be. So, it panned out well for me.
The Falconer: What will you miss the most about working here?
Mr. MacDonald: The students. The reason I got into education was to build relationships with students and help them. That’s the thing I will miss the most, because there is nothing better than to have a student that has struggled, then all of the sudden, you helped them. You flip a switch, then suddenly they are successful. Watching students become successful, or watching them battle through their challenges and obstacles is the greatest reward. I mean, if you ask all of your teachers, I think they would say the same thing. That’s the best thing. It’s like being a proud father at graduation, when you see all of these students getting their diplomas, and you know that some of them have struggles along the way, but they are there, they finally made it. That’s a great feeling.
The Falconer: What message would you like to send to the Mashpee students and staff before you leave?
Mr. MacDonald: The message I live by, stay positive. Be thankful and always look to help somebody. I was taught at a very young age that if you help people, the reward is incredible. The person that taught me that, my grandfather, was absolutely right. If people are in need and you treat them the right way and help them, you should feel good about that. He always said that what you put into something, it’s going to come back. It may not come back right away, but it’ll come back somewhere along. And he’s right, I have needed help throughout my life, throughout my career, and people have been there to help me. So helping your students be successful, or helping parents with an issue has been very rewarding for me. And it has come back tenfold.