Orchard elementary gets new principal

After a two-month search, Olivia Kane is Orchard Elementary School’s new principal.

Kane has served for the past two years as the school’s assistant principal. She starts her new job on July 1.

Mark Trifilio, the school’s principal for 15 years, announced his retirement from the South Burlington School District in February, and just weeks later was placed on leave for an unspecified amount of time related to an “ongoing investigation.” Details of the leave have not been released by school district officials.

A hiring committee formed in February and three final candidates were interviewed at a community forum in April. Final interviews were held April 5.

After graduating from the University of Vermont, Kane began her teaching career in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she taught third through fifth grades before moving to Boston to continue teaching. After moving back to Vermont, she taught at the elementary level at South Burlington’s Chamberlin School where she also completed a principal internship under Holly Rouelle.

She became assistant principal at Barre City Elementary and Middle School in 2021-2022 before joining the Orchard team as assistant principal.

Kane said her decision to apply for the position, in part, was due to the relationships she has formed with the community in the past two years.

“With the announcement of Mark’s retirement, it was just a really natural segue for me and the more I’d gotten to know people and systems, the more eager I was to be involved and more invested on the principal level,” she said. “As assistant principal, you do some of the work but on different levels and in different capacities. I wanted to get that experience of principal and see how we can continue to grow together.”

Since she began her career in the classroom, she said that she still has a “teacher mindset,” and looking for ways to support staff will be a top priority. Having firsthand classroom experience so recently, she said, is a critical piece to being able to understand what actually happens in the classroom.

“Schools have been changing for a while and most recently throughout the pandemic, many barriers to teaching have come up for classroom teachers that inhibit educators to fully lean on their skills and do the great work that they can,” she said. “I was really motivated to be a person to interfere with that appropriately so that (teachers) can give their best to students.”

She said that the biggest hurdle for elementary school-aged children is working to cultivate their social-emotional development. Without that piece, she said, academic learning really can’t take place.

“In the aftermath of the pandemic we’ve seen students coming in at very different experience levels with social interactions and social-emotional development,” she said. “We know as educators that academic learning and growth can’t take place until those social-emotional needs are met. So often students are needing more guidance and structure around how to navigate their social and emotional experiences.”

While she hasn’t yet fleshed out her first steps once in the job, she said that relationship-building, streamlining communication and a focus on systems work will continue to be a baseline for her in the months to come.

Superintendent Violet Nichols said that throughout the “rigorous search process” the Orchard School Community showed a massive amount of support for Kane, and her ability to build relationships with students, staff and families played a big role in her getting the job.

“She takes input from staff and works tirelessly to support students and parents and guardians. Her follow-through and communication are excellent,” Nichols said in a statement. “I am excited to continue to work with her in her new capacity.”