When she was 14 years old, Andrea Schwamb moved to Orleans, and Cape Cod has been home ever since. Her family had moved from Alabama to Germany to Framingham, as her father’s military assignments changed.
Years later, Schwamb said, she would pick up her daughter, now 29, from school, drive by the ocean, and say, “Look how lucky we are. People come from all over the world to see this, and we get to look at it every day.”
In an interview with the Independent, Schwamb said she understands the true demographics of the Cape. While she knows this is an idyllic vacationland, she said, she also knows the economic challenges faced by the year-round community when the tourist economy hibernates for winter.
Schwamb is the assistant superintendent of the Wareham Schools, but she lives in Hyannis. She spent the bulk of her career in the Falmouth Public Schools. From 1998 to 2005, she taught seventh- and eighth-grade English in Falmouth. Her experience also included sitting on an interview committee for a new guidance counselor, working on administrative disciplinary procedures for students, and coordinating alternative education.
While Schwamb said she loved teaching, it was her principal in Falmouth who encouraged her to go into school leadership. She pursued a master’s degree in educational leadership with the idea that it would help her “navigate the system.”
Schwamb received that degree from Salem State College in May 2004. The following January, she took her first central office position as interim assistant principal at a Falmouth elementary school.
There, she said, “I was able to actually participate in so many families’ and kids’ lives.” She became chair of the special education team, a role that tapped a longstanding interest. Before completing her undergraduate studies in education and humanities at Lesley College, Schwamb had applied to become a paraprofessional working with autistic students.
As team chair, she met with paraprofessionals monthly. Since they support students at every level in and out of the classroom, Schwamb wanted to ensure they felt valued. “To me,” she said, “that was key in promoting a culture of people who were happy.”
After the six-month interim assistant principal experience, Schwamb decided not to return to teaching; she took an assistant principal post in Duxbury, which she held until July 2006. That August, she returned to the Falmouth Public Schools as an assistant principal. She then served as a principal from 2009 to 2014. During that time, she received a doctorate in education from Northeastern University.
If she is chosen for the Nauset superintendent job, Schwamb said, she would draft a plan for connecting with district leadership, students, and town leadership in Nauset communities to find out where to focus her efforts. She said she’d like to meet with the principals of all schools weekly and also plans to establish a student advisory committee to keep students’ interests at the forefront.
Schwamb is no stranger to tough conversations. Her first teaching experience involved working with men on probation from incarceration in a Vermont prison. One of them, she said, was a white supremacist who had been convicted of a hate crime.
“I had to remember that it was my responsibility to present information, because it’s not my job to change people’s minds,” she said. “It’s my job to give information so that they can make up their own minds.”
After that experience, Schwamb said, she developed a firm belief in telling the truth about how systemic racism affects our communities and culture.
When asked how she’d approach teaching anti-racism in a predominantly white district, Schwamb said she thinks incorporating primary source documents into the history curriculum is key. “I think it behooves all of us, no matter our demographics, to tell the truth through history and through writing,” she said. The truth, she said, “is not just white.”
Having diverse teams of educators is important, Schwamb said. She also wants to take a hard look at current school policies and handbooks and ask, “Are they inclusive?”
Ultimately, Schwamb said she hopes to foster a love of education in students from all backgrounds.
Schwamb said she knows that she has to build trust in order to do important work. “I have to show up,” she said. “It takes time, so you can’t give up.” She said she wants to hear directly from students about where Nauset should improve.
Already, students at Nauset Middle School have impressed Schwamb with their candor and openness. During her district site visit last week, Schwamb said, she asked them to show her places in the school that they love rather than those they think she as an administrator might be interested in seeing.
“Show up when you say you’re going to show up,” she said. “I don’t think it takes a whole lot, but it definitely takes a level of consistency.”
