![11-year-old Jayvien Dejesus [furthest left],](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/321c235/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4032x3024+0+0/resize/840x630!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F06%2F42%2F5b7d85cf4043af3329df3f608adf%2Fimg-9519.jpg)
Springfield Public Schools officials hosted three precocious students to be "Superintendent for a day" last week. The students met with teachers, administrators, and principals to learn how they do their jobs.
Nahia Atanacio-Rodriguez, 11, from Duggen Academy, said she enjoyed the opportunity.
"My experience is like very cool because now I actually know things that I actually didn't even know existed. I didn't even know this many doors and rooms would be in this just big, huge, humongous building,” Atanacio-Rodriguez said.
Superintendent of the Springfield Public Schools, Sonia Dinnall, accompanied the students Friday morning, teaching them about her job and showing them around the school district office.
"It's just a great way for our students to see beyond the classroom walls to see beyond their schools, and to recognize that there are a host of people who love them and respect them and really want nothing but the best for them,” Dinnall said, adding that she pitched the idea to Mayor Domenic Sarno at convocation.
Dinnall said it is critical that district leaders make time to work with and support their students.
Nine-year-old Elijah Watford-Johnson, a student at Brookings Elementary School, said he was interested in Dinnall’s job.
“The thing that surprised me the most about being superintendent for a day, is all the possibilities I could have…that I chose to have and all the possibilities I have in the future,” Watford-Johnson said.
Jayvien DeJesus, 11, also from Duggen Academy, said he didn't realize how many people it took to run the district.
"I've been feeling pretty good seeing how the school system works and the different people that do the certain things in our school, such as human resources, instructional texts, stuff like that,” DeJesus said. “That's really interesting to me, because I see just what happens in my school and how it's controlled by different people."
All three students said they were impressed with the leaders they met.
