A Vision of Support

A VISION of Support

Award-winning principal makes an impact on her school through her positivity and commitment

Nicole Knapp Ey ’02

When Nicole Knapp Ey ’02 became principal of Ellenville (N.Y.) Elementary School in 2018, she faced some unique challenges.

In addition to being new to the role of principal, she was new to the school and the district. Her first task was to get to know her faculty, staff and the 700 students at the school, learning who they are and what they have experienced and building trust with them.

“When she arrived, the school had not experienced consistent leadership in years,” said Rebecca Maher, literacy and instructional supervisor at the school. “Both staff morale and student performance data were dangerously low. Nicole began by articulating a clear vision of social-emotional support and high expectations for students and adults alike. Her confidence, competence, creativity and positivity had an immediate and visible impact on school culture.”

Ey hosted many breakfasts and informal gatherings with staff, curated a weekly newsletter to highlight the positive things happening in the school, as well as resources available, and launched recognition programs such as Champs, which celebrates student effort.

A year and half after Ey began in the role, she would confront another first — a global pandemic that shut down the normal operations of the school.

“It was a scary time,” Ey recalled. “Initially, no one knew what was happening. No one knew what to do. Beyond educating the children, we had a lot of concerns. How were we going to feed the kids? Who would stay in contact with them? How would we be able to ensure their safety? That was the biggest concern — their safety. For some of our students, the best and safest 5 to 6 hours of their day was when they were at school.”

Ey rallied her staff to help provide meals to her students for pickup at the school, and they even rode the buses and delivered food a few times a week to students at the bus stops. Children who didn’t have access to reliable wi-fi at home were given their classwork in printed packets, and school staff made home visits to check on the welfare of their students and to keep them feeling connected to their school family.

“I was very lucky to have built relationships with the staff here before the shut down, and they felt very supported,” Ey said. “I was going to walk with them through COVID. I wasn’t in front of them or behind them. We did it together.”

She made sure to keep in communication with her staff and worked in team-building exercises such as an online scavenger hunt into the faculty meetings. Her leadership through the pandemic helped strengthen her relationships with her entire school community.

“Throughout the considerable challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Nicole demonstrated calm, compassion, consistency and clear thinking,” Maher said. “For this reason, she is highly respected by both staff and leadership.”

Maher was so impressed with Ey’s performance that she successfully nominated Ey for the 2022 New York State Elementary Principal of the Year Award. In addition, Ey was one of only 41 principals nationally to be selected as a 2022 recipient of the National Association of Elementary School Principals’ National Distinguished Principal Award.

“I was so humbled to receive these awards,” Ey said. “You don’t get here without your team. Feeling honored was an understatement. To be in Washington, D.C., with principals representing the other states and hearing their stories, was an experience I will never forget.”

Nicole works alongside students to insulate two classrooms using plastic bottles and inorganic trash in a rural Guatemala in January 2023.

During the recognition events in Washington, D.C., Ey was selected to participate in the 2023 Lifetouch Memory Mission to Guatemala. During the service trip to Guatemala in January 2023, she and the team of volunteers helped a rural community build a more environmentally responsible school out of plastic bottles and inorganic trash. By the end of her trip, the team had installed 10,000 bottles, which will act as insulation for two new classrooms.

“That experience was life-changing — absolutely life-changing,” she said.

She explained how the children and their families had few material possessions, and many slept on the ground or on wooden pallets. Children attended school for three hours in the morning and returned to their homes to farm. While she was there, the school was on break so the children and many volunteers from the community worked side-by-side with the team of Americans to build the classrooms.

“They had desks from the 1950s and chalkboards, but kids were still learning,” Ey said. “They value education a lot, and they didn’t take it for granted, as we often do here. What was really eye-opening was knowing that these children were learning regardless of what tools or technologies they did or didn’t have. It’s all in how their teachers are teaching them.”

She also realized the importance of making a human connection.

“I made connections in a new country with children who speak a different language than I do,” she said. “It didn’t matter; they could see that I was showing up every day, just as I do back home. Their smiles and laughter filled my heart.”

She shared that she “left Guatemala with the mindset to live in the present, listen more and continue to lead with an open heart.”

Ey is the kind of principal who dresses as the Elf on the Shelf and hides in a different spot in the school during the holidays; who wears an apple costume to encourage students to eat healthy; who makes sure the school has a spirited float in the 4th of July community parade; and who likes for every member of the community to feel welcome at her door. She created the school slogan, “Ellenville Pride is School Wide,” which is repeated every morning during announcements, and organizes a weekly “Funday Friday Riddle,” “Turkey in my Pocket” and other games that build school spirit and improve communication among school members.

“She continues to amaze me with the ease in which she captivates her audience,” said Ellenville kindergarten teacher Ann Mattracion, who was on the search committee that hired Ey.

Ey helps ensure that every member of the school can be successful.

“She recognized the different needs of our students and advocated for more support staff to help,” said School Counselor Andrea Hemstreet. “Through her leadership we have been better able to serve the needs of our school and our community.”

Sometimes that means she advocates for differentiated reading groups within the same class to help close the dramatic skill gaps in reading abilities among students. Sometimes that means assigning peer mentors who speak the same native language for the increasing number of English as a New Language (ENL) students. Sometimes that means trying something new and scrapping the entire effort if it doesn’t work.

“Our school has benefited from Nicoles’s presence in many ways, but I think the biggest change of direction I have seen is the focus she has put on academics,” Mattracion said. “Nicole has gone to bat time and time again, and continues to do so, to get what our building needs.”

Ey has been successful in securing the resources to do such things as launch new reading and math programs, ensure that the faculty had the training to successfully lead those programs and enable students to take field trips to enhance their classroom learning.

“At the end of the day I am going to do what I think is best for the children here and my staff know it,” she said. “Sometimes I might make decisions that they don’t love, but they know my heart is in the right place. I’m very open about asking for feedback. There’s a lot of respect. It’s a two-way street. I have never forgotten what it’s like to be a classroom teacher. That was my first love.”

Ey said she cherishes her chosen career as an educator. She thinks back to when she arrived at SUNY Oswego as an undecided student who transitioned into art education and then elementary education.

“I had the most amazing experience with my education classes at Oswego,” said Ey, who is a sister of Alpha Delta Eta sorority. “Hands down, my professors were just incredible, really incredible.”

While the pandemic was a very challenging time for educators, she said being an educator is one of the most impactful careers an individual can pursue.

“It’s the only job where you can impact everybody,” she said. “Every doctor had a teacher, every plumber had a teacher. You could probably go into some other career, and work less and make more money, but you’re not going to impact children the way you do in this profession. There’s nothing that’s going to make you more proud in your heart and more tired at the end of the day than this profession, too. But every day, you’re going to go home with a story or a moment that warms your heart and makes you realize you made a difference.”

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