Guiding Lights: New Principals Are on the Job at Two Schools

By CHRIS BURRELL

It's the day before school starts, and these two new principals - on the job just four days - barely have even a few minutes to stop and talk.

But in a short amount of time, Michael Halt and Diane Gandy manage to reveal something about themselves - a worldliness they share from experiences outside the realm of education and a giddiness about where they've landed.

Take Mr. Halt, for starters.

The lanky 39-year-old with a buzz cut remembers what he wanted to do with his life more than a decade ago, back when he was a full-fledged Marine just home from the Gulf War.

"I wanted to be a cop," he says.

The career sequence possessed a certain logic, going from soldiering to policing with all the familiar trappings - a uniform, a sidearm and a rank stitched on your sleeve. Plus, he had a last name that seemed to cry out for a career in enforcement.

But Mr. Halt looked deeper, realizing that his passion for the Marines embodied something more.

"People still give you the hairy eyeball," says Mr. Halt. "Jarhead to classroom doesn't quite make sense."

To him, though, the connection was clear. After five years in the military, he came away with an appreciation for education.

"The thing I loved about the Marine Corps was working with younger Marines. There's a greater connection to teaching than anything else," he says.

He gravitated to high schools, doing his student teaching in a California school that was 98 per cent Hispanic. His next gig was teaching social studies in a minority-majority school.

"The Anglos were 35 per cent," he says.

Mr. Halt initially looks and behaves in a more formal manner, something befitting his rank of lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. His haircut and snappy wardrobe send one message, but he quickly shifts gears, pulling his chair from behind his desk for friendly banter.

The cadence of his speech can be lightning fast, and he's instantly excited and animated when talking about education and the Marines.

"In California, I averaged 40 kids in a class. When I first came to the Vineyard, I said I'm never leaving," he says.

He taught for four years in California, a stint that helped him see the bounty of the Vineyard schools.

"In so many ways, we're spoiled. The resources, the wonderful students, the class sizes," he adds.

Mr. Halt also set his sights on the leadership echelons, moving up to become dean of students at the Martha's Vineyard Regional High School after four years teaching students about the history of the world.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Lieutenant Colonel Halt was called into active duty for much of the academic year.

There's no Marine Corps flag flying in his office in West Tisbury - at least not yet - but he does have an official Marine wallet containing a Marine-issued card. It's a daily reminder that keeps him on focus: What did he learn? What did he teach? Who did he make smile today?

This Marine, trained to bring order to chaos, experienced in entering new worlds, is entering one of those new places. The students are fewer than at the high school - 325 compared to more than 800 - and a good deal younger and smaller. He'll have to fold his tall frame into those tiny kindergarten chairs to make eye contact with the youngest students.

Not even a week into the job, Mr. Halt is relishing the excitement, the chance to interact with younger kids.

"It's the energy they bring to school," he says.

As for the tumult of the last year and the fact that his posting came about when Elaine Pace surprised school committee members by handing in her resignation in late July, Mr. Halt shows the equanimity and confidence of a military officer.

"It's a great staff," he says. "They know what needs to be done."

Diane Gandy

Six miles up the road to Beetlebung Corner, Ms. Gandy has also stepped foot in a new world. Coming from schools in Brockton, Roxbury and Framingham to the green fields of Chilmark to run a school of about 54 students, she is appropriately in awe.

"There's clay courts here," she says, pointing over toward the tennis complex at the Chilmark Community Center next door.

Her makeshift office sits in an extra classroom, surrounded by stacks of boxes and papers and catalogues. She's typing on an iBook laptop, readying herself for an afternoon meeting with Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. Kriner Cash.

"I like to be prepared even in the midst of all this chaos," she says. She adds a quick rejoinder, "Serenity now," smiles and sighs.

The first thing you notice about Ms. Gandy is that she doesn't look anything close to 56 years old. Her youthful face matches an exuberance. She's called the parents to alert them to the rocky start that came about from floor repairs.

Kindergartners through third-graders started their school year back at the old Menemsha School on the other side of South Road. Fourth and fifth-graders spent yesterday and today in the Chilmark library.

Ms. Gandy held the staff meeting, bringing herself and her teachers up to speed on procedures. No one has told her yet about the May Day tradition here, where the children run away from the teachers after the morning bell rings.

She's trying not to think past September.

Her roots to the Vineyard run deep. "My mother was pregnant with me when we first came here," she says.

The family spent summers in Oak Bluffs, where Ms. Gandy now owns a home.

In her education career, she's been a reading teacher, an instructional support teacher and a principal, most recently of the Juniper Hill School in Framingham, a K-5 bilingual school forced to close down due to budget cuts.

Before going into the classroom, Ms. Gandy was in the corporate world as a customer representative for Xerox. But it's her first job that let her travel the globe for three years. She was a flight attendant for TWA.

"I wanted to see the world," she says. "I love to travel still."