Schools

Looking At Education Through The Decades, As Supt. Chesley Prepares to Retire

From desegregation in St. Louis to a toxic dump site in Denver, Chesley's educational career paralleled major changes, nationally and locally.

 

 

On January 31, Superintendent Gary Chesley, Ed.D., will be retiring from the Bethel School System. Chesley's career cuts a path through the history of the last several decades, and he remembers working in St. Louis at the beginning of desegregation.

Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 “In theory, desegregation was supposed to have been voluntary, but there was nothing voluntary about it,” Chesley remembered. “The judge said, You're going to take 400 kids, and we had to do it in a school of 2500 kids.”

 Chesley described the area's growth west, as the city developed concentrically out from from the river. Many of the area's residents had migrated to the area as children when their old neighborhoods became mixed race and eventually all black.

Find out what's happening in Bethelwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 “The school was made of extraordinarily driven students,” Chesley said, adding that the school had been made up of upper and middle upper class white parents who were involved in the schools in a very positive way. “For the vast majority of white kids, their dads were doctors, lawyers or in the corporate world and when this desegregation order came, there was no place left to go.”

 When the order to allow the black students to be bussed into the school, Chesley said, “For the most part, the black kids and white kids got along great,” but there was tension between the adults.

 “The white parents were always infuriated because the buses came and left in the afternoon, but you would go by my school and you'd see 15-20 cabs lined up taking these kids back to the city day after day after day. That was a hard thing visually and emotionally for white parents to take.”

 According to Chesley, “The black parents rarely came out came out to our community because they felt threatened, with some justification, that the cops were on their case.”

 Over the following decades, Chesley said there were constant racial problems in the community. After several years, and many budget cuts, the racial and political climate within the school proved too much, and Chesley found a unique opportunity to teach in Denver.

 “There was a school built in Denver for 3,500 kids, and it was enormous,” Chesley said. “They had built it on the eastern-most outskirts of Denver. I could look out my window and see coyotes and things on the horizon. They built it but no one would send their kids there because there was a toxic dump about a mile a half down the road.”

 The dump had been the result of World War 11 bombardier practice, and in the 1950's, when that ended, chemical companies began dumping there. With the school only 1.5 miles downwind, the EPA tested it and proved it was safe. “By the time I left, there were 1,700 kids enrolled, and now there are 3,500,” Chesley said.

 After a stint as principal and assistant superintendent in Cheshire, CT, Chesley made his home in Bethel. “In early 1995, the school was not keeping up with other districts,” First Selectman, Matt Knickerbocker said.

 Knickerbocker reported that at the time, the Bethel School District was isolated from the greater educational communities, and there was no sense of connection between the teachers. Knickerbocker served on the Board of Education for ten years, with seven years as Chairman. “In the late 80s, early 90s, we were really at a crisis point. The test scores were low. There were a lot of people who put their kids in private schools or left Bethel in that time frame,” the First Selectman said.

 Outlining the state of schools when he first took on the position, Chesley said, “I never saw such a mess. We had probably 250 teachers, but we needed to hire 35 teachers on August 4. They didn't have a budget, so they had decided not to fill those vacancies.”

 With the low morale of teaching staff, Chesley said the teachers felt like scapegoats. Many residents refused to pay more taxes and the school was getting warning letters from the state that not enough money was going into the education budget in Bethel.

 “Somebody said to me, 'If you go to Bethel and you fail, nobody will be upset with you. It is what is.' People always said it takes five years to turn the district around and it has. You have to get the people.”

 Chesley said that families who loved the town began to leave, afraid their children couldn't get a good start in life here. “People were saying, you don't want to go to Bethel High School because you can't go to college. Berry school had gas leaks every couple of days and we were out in the parking lot one day a week, and everywhere you looked there were major problems.”

 Fourteen years later, the high school has one of the lowest drop-out rates in the state, and the vast majority of students go on to colleges, many of them ivy league, Chesley said. “We began to really make great hires, great teachers and principals, and now we are considered one of the elite school systems in the state,” he said. “We got the right people sitting in the right seats on the bus.”

 Chesley credits the district's progress with school boards “who were really willing to do their homework, listen, and voted yes on some difficult things,” and he credited parents who might not have had a terrific high school experience but were convinced that their children could have a better life. “We have worked hard to develop programs that those parents didn't have,” Chesley said.

 One of the other pride and joys of the school system is the ROTC program, headed by  Lt. Commander Mark Dwinells, who has worked alongside Chesley for several years and described him in glowing terms. Dwinells even said that Chesley has been as great a leader as anyone he met while working in the Pentagon and the military.

 “Chesley is an authority in terms of title and presence, but he has been a friend to us all. The philosopher Cicero said that you know someone is a friend when even in their absence they are with you. I think that is how most people feel about him,” Dwinells said.

The First Selectman agreed with both Chesley and Dwinells about everything it took to improve the district. He said, “I give credit to the community that supported the educational budget. I feel proud of what our school system has accomplished. We revamped curriculum, special education, we renovated the high school and the Berry Elementary School. Chesley delivered. They saw the schools improve and they saw the results of his initiative."  Knickerbocker said, adding with seriousness,  "It would be hard to find an educational leader I respect more."   


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here