Ding, Ding, Ding! The bell rings. The students start filing into their classrooms. The teachers review their lesson plans. In a few minutes, the morning announcements will come on. It’s another day at Milton High School. The students and staff know where to go and what to do.

However, they rarely stop to recognize those behind the scenes who keep everything going, like Superintendent Dr. Peter Burrows, who began his formal entry plan into the Milton Public Schools this July.

The School Committee hired Dr. Burrows, a former high school English teacher and high school principal, back in January. Since then, he has been exploring all the schools to get a feel for what they are like and how to improve them.

He described how his entry plan, which can be found on the MPS website, “outlines all of the work that I am doing this year to better understand where we are, build relationships throughout the community, analyze district level data, understand our curriculum and assessment systems [and] our outcome.”

He said that it is important for him to bring “our community together to work together to craft our vision moving forward,” because he can’t build an implementation plan without help from staff, students, and community members, and he doesn’t want anyone to be surprised as the plans turn into actions.

According to the Patriot Ledger, Burrow taught English in Japan, Mexico, and South Korea, and was a teacher, assistant principal, and principal at Wilmette High in Oregon before going to Vermont, where he became a superintendent.

However, after sitting down with him on October 24, who he is and how he will impact our community became clearer. One of the first questions concerned fun experiences that he has had within the schools so far.

Instead of bringing up a specific event, he talked about how, “it’s been wonderful to get to know the community and, you know, I think in this kind of job it is really important that you are out meeting people and a part of the community.” Specifically, he has enjoyed how welcoming Milton has been and how “passionate the community is about doing what’s right for students.”

He said, “I see people stepping up in Milton to make Milton a super strong community and those are the ingredients, in a position like this, that you need to move an organization and continue to improve and provide whatever a student needs, which is really exciting and inspiring.”

When discussing his impressions of the high school, its student body, and its culture, Burrows said that he found it to be awesome because students are open and “comfortable to speak freely and to share what they think is working and their vision for the future.” He is even planning on sending out applications soon to put together a superintendent advisory team that actually gives the students a voice in decisions that are being made.

On being a superintendent, Burrows remarked how he “actually likes the varied nature of the job, you know. No two days are the same, so it’s fast-paced and I really like helping people and have found that in this job I have the ability to make an impact in ways that feel good.”

Burrows also talked about the differences between Milton and the other places he’s worked, like Vermont. He said, “Well, I think that one of the things that is very different coming from Vermont to here is that it is more urban and more diverse. Those are the two reasons I wanted to move here: I was excited to live in an urban/suburban community and appreciate the commitment that this community has to diversity and to supporting all of the people that are coming to Milton to make it a strong community.”

Interestingly enough, according to the Patriot Ledger, the Addison Central School District, where he was a superintendent for 10 years, has actually less than half of the population of MPS.

As a new superintendent, one of the challenges Burrows faced coming to Milton was how, “education as a whole and communities have really suffered over the last three years of the pandemic, and now that we’re coming out of the pandemic and looking ahead I think there’s a lot of work we need to do to pick up the pieces and reorganize and re-envision where we’re headed.”

He also pointed out that even after recovering from the pandemic there is still a lot to be done. “I think that until every student’s needs are being met, we’re not done,” he said.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns for Burrows, make sure to stop by the Superintendent’s office, which is right near the nurse, or email him at pburrows@miltonps.org.

You can even ask him about music because, in his downtime, he enjoys playing funk and jazz fusion in his band.