Photo by Lester Smith
An enthusiastic Wingman Flight Crew, led by Assistant Principal Ashley Eichorn and Principal Damon Pearce at the left, presented a happy dance act for the talent contest in the opening rally of Suffield Middle School’s Wingman program.
For its second year at Suffield Middle School, the Wingman Program opened with a two-hour rally with the whole student body assembled on September 28 in the school auditorium. Wingman, a program managed largely by students selected for the flight crew, encourages a positive school atmosphere where bullying is rare and students readily support each other as “wingmen.” Last year, several assembly programs with great motivational speakers were combined with games and group exercises aimed at building that atmosphere.
Suffield Middle School is a pioneer in implementing the program, which was created with professional help by Ian Hockley of Newtown after his son Dylan became a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre. Hockley has been present at each of the Wingman Days here, and he reports that the program is spreading in Southern New Eng- land and New York.
Following some informal preamble dancing by the flight crew and others, the rally opened with an extraordinarily energetic dance, song, and interactive skits performance by the JLINE trio, a New York City team that nicely incorporates an anti-bullying message with short lectures. Next were brief presentations by flight crew leaders, who spoke about the elements of the Wingman program and what could be expected during the school year, (Their t-shirts read, “We’ve got your back.”) Then came the talent show: the Teacher Dance-Off, with entertaining performances by teams of teachers in dance and music. The winning group was chosen by the volume of their applause. And the winner was judged to be the “Boy Band,” a group of male teachers.
This observer would judge that the seventh grade dance team featuring Mr. Alexopoulos was a close runner-up.