"My pedagogy is active learning, project-based learning — giving the students the classroom experience, but then getting them out of the classroom and into the world. I think we do that really well," says Paul Amadio, who just started his second year as head of school at Pennfield School in Portsmouth.

Jim McGaw

PORTSMOUTH — Just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in.

For years Paul Amadio had been a head of several college-prep boarding schools, most recently in Sedona, Ariz., but when COVID-19 hit in 2020 he had a change in heart about his career.

“I got through the pandemic and decided I didn’t want to be a head of school anymore,” said Amadio. 

So, he and his wife, Donita, purchased a home in Fairhaven, Mass., about 90 minutes south of where he grew up in Leominster. “We were out here no matter what, and I was going to re-launch my consulting company that works with schools. A lot of my background is in philanthropy and raising money,” he explained.

But then a consultant with whom he had previously worked called him up to tell him about a job opening at Pennfield School, the private school on Sandy Point Avenue which has an enrollment of about 170 and serves ages 3 up to eighth grade. Rob Kelly, who had been head of school for nearly two decades, was retiring.

During a virtual meeting with the search committee, Amadio said he quickly realized that Pennfield was made up of a “different type of people,” as he put it. “This is a school that has a real heart that I was really impressed with.”

After being named a finalist, he and his wife traveled to Portsmouth. “We came in through the front door and were immediately surrounded by kids and adults,” he said, adding he soon learned it wasn’t just “staging” to impress a candidate. “That’s just Pennfield. It is a really unique and authentic community. That old ‘Jerry Maguire’ movie? They had me at hello.”

He got the job, and this week began his second year at the helm.

Amadio’s journey to becoming Pennfield’s head of schools took a curious route. Despite growing up in Central Massachusetts, he was already familiar with this area, having earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from what is now Roger Williams University in Bristol.

“Because I was an actor, I ended up getting a gig at what used to be called Lady Astor’s Beechwood Mansion (in Newport). One year they added an equity summer theater and I got cast to come out and I lived in the mansion for a summer,” he said, adding that he worked with Steve Carell of “The Office” fame. “I think he played a valet.”

Amadio played the actor Edwin Booth, whose reputation as perhaps the greatest American thespian of the 19th century was overshadowed by his infamous younger brother, and presidential assassin, John Wilkes Booth. 

A singer who also plays guitar and harmonica, Amadio also played in a band — The Dharma Bums, after the 1958 novel by beat author Jack Kerouac — in his late teens and early ’20s. That’s how he met Donita, who he said “looked and sang like Pat Benatar.” 

He first got the teaching bug when one of his theater stops took him to Chicago. “I went into the inner cities as part of community service. It was a maelstrom of kids yelling and screaming,” recalled Amadio, who said that was when he realized what he really wanted to do.

Returning to Massachusetts for a holiday in 1987, his dad found a help wanted ad in the Boston Globe for a job teaching acting at a day school in Worcester.

“They pay you to do that?” Amadio remembered thinking. “From there, my job and my passion was getting kids to feel good about who they are.”

He was also interested in making good schools better, and took up risk management consulting. He saw lots of missed opportunities at one otherwise excellent school, such as a lack of summer programs or a real connection with the community. The administration made the changes he suggested — and then appointed him director of admissions. 

Several other jobs later, Amadio ended up at Pennfield. He lives in the big yellow house on campus with Donita and his youngest daughter, Galen, who’s an esthetician (and an actress) in Newport. He has two other children: Natalie, a school counselor in Prescott, Ariz.; and Colton, of Acushnet, Mass. Colton was executive chef at a Boston restaurant called Cósmica, but he’s left to become new executive chef at an organic farm in Easton, Mass. 

Opportunity to teach

Amadio said he’s always missed teaching, but he now has that opportunity at Pennfield. He teaches “The Head of School Class” to students in grades 6 through 8.

“The curriculum is wide open; I can do whatever I want. Last year, being my first year here, I used a lot of my background in theater games and role-playing, to teach kids about ethics and values and relationships,” he said. “The kids like the fact that they get an experience with me that isn’t like their science class; it’s more free. I feel that social-emotional learning for kids today is a critical factor; our schools aren’t always able to offer enough of it, so I try and use my class to do some of those things.”

Amadio said he’s always believed in giving students the opportunity to take risks by challenging themselves, and to learn from their mistakes.

Pennfield, he said, is not only concerned with the rigor of its academics, “but how to apply it to the real world around us. My pedagogy is active learning, project-based learning — giving the students the classroom experience, but then getting them out of the classroom and into the world. I think we do that really well.”

What’s next?

Amadio has no plans to change any of Pennfield’s well-worn traditions, such as students’ commitment to service. The school works with organizations such as the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center in Newport and the community food bank at St. John’s Lodge here in town, and also sends students on service trips — it’s off to Costa Rica next spring.

However, he does seem some room for growth. “Sustainability is such a big part of my life, so we have an amazing sustainability program for little kids,” he said, noting the school now has a Green Team.

It’s also important to teach students the history of their immediate surroundings, he said. Last year a seventh-grader wrote a successful grant application to acknowledge and celebrate the Native American tribes that once lived on the property, said Amadio, noting the school plans on hosting an acknowledgement ceremony at some point.

“This isn’t meant as any sort of criticism, but the school hasn’t taken advantage of the space around us. This is a learning laboratory,” said Amadio, adding he’s also hopeful the school can one day start a farm on the 19-acre campus to give second- and third-generation local farmers a place to grow.

Helping all abilities

Also new is a program called the Center for Student Success. “It focuses on kids not only who have learning differences and mild to moderate learning disabilities, but also to accelerate kids on the other end of that — students who have eclipsed our program in the seventh grade. So, we’re going to provide them with people who are going to challenge them in other areas while they’re still here,” he said.

Co-curricular activities such as theater, yoga, wellness and sustainability have also been added to students’ schedules.

In a long-term sale and leaseback agreement with Salve University in 2021, Salve eliminated Pennfield’s debt to allow the school to invest its resources on academics, teacher support and building its endowment. 

“They’ve been pretty much hands off, and I say that in a good way,” Amadio said of Salve, which is helping Pennfield convert the large open space in front of the school into a new soccer field.

The excitement at the school is palpable, he said. You can feel it at the daily assemblies that often attract up to 100 parents.

“What you’ll see after a few weeks is, a 3-year-old will get up and talk to 250 people as much as an eighth-grader would. In fact, all of the kids here have to speak to our community,” he said.

Then there’s “Dance Party Thursday,” when the entire school dances together for a few minutes.

“It’s that kind of a community here. Everybody feels comfortable about who they are,” said Amadio, noting while the school maintains a vigorous curriculum, it allows room for kids to find their own path.

“I feel that who I am as an educator fits really well with this school.”