By: Addison Plummer '25
Entering the 2023-2024 school year, Newtown High School welcomes 17 new staff members. This includes a new assistant principal, Paul Ribeiro, a new school Counselor, Daniel Farina, and a student assistance counselor Melissa Webb. Nine new teachers as well as several interns and substitutes have also joined NHS this year.
Paul Ribeiro will be taking over as an assistant principal for Dana Manning who retired at the end of last year. He has taught in several different schools and positions but looks forward to joining the school as he has lived in Newtown for 8 years.
“My main goal right now is to support Dr. Longobucco and the rest of the community here, along with learning as much as I can,” Ribeiro said. “From my understanding, it is a very vibrant student community, people are involved, so if I can help make things fun. That's my philosophy about school, school should be fun. School should be a place to learn and grow, but should also have opportunities for all students to have some fun as well.”
NHS graduate Megan Goyda is a new Physical Education and Health teacher. She will be replacing Kathleen Davey who retired at the end of last school year. Goyda is excited to be back expanding her teaching experience, as she has only taught health in the past. This year she is teaching several PE classes, as well as the class Fit For Life. She explains how close she was with the department in high school, and can't wait to be back.
“I'm excited to work on my PE world, especially with the adaptive class. I did unified here in high school and a little in college, but I haven't had a full class setting, so I look forward to making sure that all of my students are seen.” Goyda said.
Goyda will also be taking over as the new field hockey coach, she can’t wait and looks forward to the upcoming season.
“This is like a dream come true for me, I have coached at other schools but to be able to come back and to not only coach a program I was a part of, but to also coach kids I have seen grow up.” Goyda said.
Nicole Leanord took her first full-time teaching job as an English teacher at NHS. This year she has mostly freshman classes, with one sophomore class. As a new teacher, Leonard strives to bring a creative aspect into all of her classes and is excited to get to know her students.
“I’m looking forward to helping all the students grow and learning how to connect with them, which I think is super important to have an impact on their lives in some way,” Leonard said. “Of course the content will come later, I just want to establish those relationships first,”
Haley Arbitelle will be interning in the history department for the duration of the year as a substitute teacher. This is also her first teaching job, though she has worked as an admissions manager at the University of Bridgeport.
“The history department has been great, I’ve only worked with the upper-level students so far but everyone is pretty cool. I love the community here.” Arbitelle said.
NHS looks forward to getting to know and welcoming Paul Ribeiro, Kimberly Adis, Jonathan MacIsaac, Daniel Farina, Nicole Leonard, Rebecca Rendich, Megan Goyda, Alex Pitteti, Marissa Cummings, Alyssa Leroy, Steve George, Melissa Webb, Joe Bunnell, Madeline Hossler, Autumn Dempsey, Allison Savage, Haley Arbitelle and Sheila Morley as the year progresses.
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