Newton’s Angier Elementary School received a National Blue Ribbon Award from the U.S. Department of Education, one of nine schools in Massachusetts to earn the honor this year.
According to the Department of Education, a National Blue Ribbon awarded school displays exemplary teaching and learning practices that serve as models for education across the nation.
Orla Higgins Averill, principal of Angier Elementary since 2020, emphasized the role of a solid and supportive environment in achieving this feat.
“The culture of the school is very strong, warm, collaborative,” Higgins Averill said. “Very real.”
Higgins Averill implemented the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support framework in Angier in an effort to meet each student where they are academically, socially, and emotionally. The framework is designed to support schools by identifying students’ strengths and needs and the appropriate strategies for student growth.
“It’s a model where every student gets what they need,” Higgins Averill said. “We are constantly looking at student data weekly. The structure has been adapted over the last number of years with the input of everyone.”
Edra Wigder, a teacher at Angier for 22 years, explained that the support of both the administration and the parent community is pivotal to creating a place where teachers feel free to take risks and have difficult conversations.
“[Our work] goes hand-in-hand with our leadership and the parent community—we have a lot of support around teaching and trust from the parent community,” Wigder said.
Higgins Averill affirmed this sentiment, noting that a cared-for teaching staff is vital to a healthy learning community for everyone.
“In the absence of a culture where teachers feel safe and cared for, that work would not take root the way that it has here,” Higgins Averill said. “The teachers at Angier are incredible. It’s really important that school culture and structures support teachers to do their best work in service of students.”
Brigid Tobin, mother of three current students at Angier and co-president of the Angier PTO, said Angier has uniquely impacted her children.
“When we came in [to Angier], Brendan was behind in reading … they immediately flagged that, and his reading specialist and primary teacher caught Brendan up within the year,” Tobin said.
Tobin explained that Angier gladly adopted the necessary technology for her other children, showing the school to be both technology-forward and adaptive to students’ needs.
“My other two boys have hearing loss, and they both are on IEPs, and [Angier has] really embraced using technology,” Tobin said. “All the teachers wear the microphones—there was never a question of ‘Oh, this is too complicated.’”
Tobin expressed her gratitude for the teachers who make Angier a safe learning environment.
“They went out of their way to make students feel confident,” Tobin said.
Widger said Angier’s special community is what sets it apart from other schools.
“I have been here my whole career, and I can’t imagine myself going anywhere else,” Wigder said. “It’s a special, special place.”
According to Tobin, the unique community at Angier had always been evident, even before receiving the National Blue Ribbon Award.
“We didn’t need the honor to let us know how special the school was,” Tobin said. “You feel it walking the hallways, from the teachers and staff, the janitors and lunch lady, really everyone that orbits the school.”
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