Mr. Groleau is the Director of Technology at Braintree Public Schools. He was recently promoted after being a math teacher for many years. 

“My biggest challenge was having to deliver the news to my students, because I always go back to the reason I get into education is working with students and building relationships with them to better their lives.”

Once he found out he could move to this position, it was time for him to look back. 

“I’ve had some classes and built really strong relationships with students,” Mr. Groleau explained. 

He made the difficult decision to not start his new job right away as he cared more about his students. 

“I wanted to make sure my students were in a good place academically, which obviously carries over mentally as well. If you’re stressed out and have a new teacher coming in, trying to prepare you for an exam that they weren’t there for, that’s tough.”

The change in situation didn’t only bring challenges to Mr. Groleau’s students, but also brought some new habitual challenges.

“I’m getting things done, keeping up with meetings, I’m using Google Calendar now, which wasn’t as much as before. It’s a learning curve overall as well. So it’s a good change, but it’s definitely a different change.”

Now the choices lie in his hands, and now he watches them play out in the school 

“I mean, every day, I’m making a decision about something, and I always need to bring it back to making decisions centered around the core of our work, which is our students, and that’s important to me. So I try to leverage my classroom experience in this role, and really try to mend the two together to make sure that we have a plan moving forward, and we’re able to sustain and really make sure our students are immersed in new technology.”

Even with a changing world around him that may overwhelm the average person, Mr. Groleau keeps seeing the light in the world.

“My wife and I are expecting in July. It’s funny, because [when] I found out we were expecting, I was in the interview process for this position. There were several interviews, so I was kind of preparing for that. And then I took on a new role.”