New school year, new principal, new focus at CFES

Posted by Rich Schwartzman on August 25, 2014

Chadds Ford Elementary Principal Shawn Dutkiewicz — on his first day as principal — greets students in the first day of school. He said the kids would be taught to be resilient.

It’s a new school year and the students at Chadds Ford Elementary School have a new principal with a new focus.

Shawn Dutkiewicz, coming off six years as principal at Pennell Elementary School in the Penn-Delco School District, greeted students as they came off the buses at CFES for the first day of school on Aug. 25.

Dutkiewicz said students this year would also get a new focus, that of resiliency.

Chad the Charger high-fivwes with returning students. — What's the first day of school at CFES without a high-five from Chad the Charger?

“It’s going to be a core theme,” Dutkiewicz said, “having a resilient mind set.”

The idea, he said, is for students to learn to persevere and dedicate themselves to a task.

Dutkiewicz said he wants students to learn how to set goals, academic and personal. It doesn’t matter whether it’s setting a goal for a given course or to improve at a sport

“We don’t see this as often as we’d like,” he said. “We want them to learn how to set goals, then be resilient in following through.”

He added that the task connects to the last school year when former principal Mark Ransford retired unexpectedly and to the many school days that were lost due to bad weather.

“Resiliency is really relevant now. It’s a good character trait to have,” Dutkiewicz said.

About Rich Schwartzman

Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.