Principal Outlines WHS Mission to Parents

In an address to a standing room only crowd Thursday evening, Westfield High School Principal Peter Renwick outlined the school's goals for the year.

Renwick was bringing back the traditional principal's address to Back-to-School Night this year, using the speech as a chance to discuss the school's mission and his goals for the year. The sophomore year principal used his own experience as a parent attending a back-to-school night for his second grade daughter as a theme for the speech. The annual event is held to allow parents a chance to meet with teachers and learn more about the school.

"I wanted to get the sense that it was a lively and enthusiastic school environment," Renwick said of his expectations as a parent attending the event. "That my child would be inspired to learn."

In an upbeat address, Renwick touched on the process his administrative team conducted over the summer to review the school's mission. He said the process allowed him and the administrators to discuss putting the school's learning environment up front and make the learning environment a top goal for the school year.

In addition to Renwick's speech, the school set up a flat screen television in the main lobby with a screen showing various facts and successes of the school in the last year. Upbeat pop music blasted in the lobby promoting the successes on the screen.

Renwick told parents that they wanted to brand the school as a place where students felt comfortable with the environment and the ability to challenge themselves. He talked about an enterpeneurial culture, where he would like students to take risks and help create opportunities to create extracurricular opportunities and ways to serve the Westfield community.

"We want them to create their own opportunities and they do that," Renwick said of the student body. "We want them to understand that this is a time for them to take risks. We want to provide academic excellence and provide character and civics in our school. We want them to succeed. We want them to have successes in their life."

As a part of this vision, Renwick told parents that the students post-high-school lives are the forefront of the learning culture. He said he and the faculty want to be able to translate classroom teachings into success for students in college and in the workforce. This includes providing skills for the future in classrooms, along with an experience the principal hopes students can look back on at reunions.

"We want them to look back on their high school years and see that they were in a place that was inspiring and allowed them to grow and achieve," Renwick said.