Former Principal Amy Cetner Reflects On 28 Years At BHS
After a dozen years at the helm of Bourne High School, Principal Amy Cetner has taken a new position as the principal of Marshfield High School.
The decision to move on from Bourne after spending 28 years at its high school was bittersweet, Ms. Cetner said, but the memories she will take with her will not be forgotten easily.
“I’m a time capsule for this place for crying out loud,” she joked. “Twenty-eight years!”
Early Beginnings
It was the summer of 1995. Ms. Cetner, a native Upstate New Yorker, was living on the South Shore after graduate school. At the time she was working as a guidance counselor, having interned at Rockland High School, and was applying to “any guidance counselor position that popped up.”
Ms. Cetner admits that in general, her memory can be fuzzy, but she remembers her first time in Bourne as if it happened yesterday.
“I remember I came over the Bourne Bridge and seeing that ‘Welcome to Cape Cod’ [hedge] just blew me away,” she said. “I had never been on the Cape until that time."
She recalls meeting with former principal John Grondin and the high school’s curriculum director and being struck by her interviewers’ casual attire.
“You could tell they were ready to play golf,” she said, laughing. “I just remember walking in and thinking, ‘So, this is Cape Cod.’ There was just a vibe.”
Something about the “vibe” that day really resonated with Ms. Cetner. It was welcoming, she said, and that tiny sampling of the climate and culture Bourne High School had to offer gave her “a good feeling.”
“They offered me the job and I’ve been here ever since,” she said.
Climbing The Ranks
Looking back, Ms. Cetner said it was actually colleague Jordan Geist, director of business services for Bourne Public Schools, who encouraged her to continue her postgraduate education through the certificate of advanced graduate study (CAGS) program at Bridgewater State University.
“He knew that I like to continuously learn and I’m always trying to find new things out, so I said why not?” Ms Cetner said. At the time, she added, she wasn’t really thinking about her endgame, and becoming an administrator or principal was not front of mind.
“That wasn’t my goal,” she said. “I just liked the coursework, I just like learning.”
That lifelong-learner outlook helped Ms. Cetner in the long run. Her first position at Bourne High School was in 1995, when the high school housed 8th through 12th grades. The position was split, she said, and she spent half her time as a teacher and half as an 8th-grade guidance counselor.
Ms. Cetner was a guidance counselor at the high school until 2005, when she took on the dual role of assistant principal and dean of students. The role opened up around the time she finished the CAGS program in education leadership and, although it mainly involved student discipline and all-encompassing administrative oversight, Ms. Cetner said she was drawn to the aspects that evoked her previous experiences in guidance.
“I always say that regardless of my job, I always come from the place of guidance,” she said. “Everything I do has that; that’s my background and I just feel like the job itself—regardless of what your background is—really has to be strongly grounded and rooted in understanding people: understanding kids, understanding adults, and how that all works collaboratively.”
Ms. Cetner became Bourne High School’s principal in 2011, after serving as the assistant principal for six years. All in all, her career at BHS spanned 27 school years and left an impact on multiple generations of its graduates.
“I think I’m at the stage where I have students of students,” Ms. Cetner said. “Quite a few: I have students that I was their class adviser and now I have their kids. It’s that generational piece; I’ll miss that, but I feel strongly that I’ll always have a foot planted here.”
Bourne Public Schools Superintendent Kerri Anne Quinlan-Zhou said Bourne is grateful to Ms. Cetner for the years she dedicated to the town’s students and her leadership.
“Part of her legacy is an unflinching student-centerness and a genuine connection to the students in her care,” Dr. Zhou said. “Amy will be missed but we wish her the best as she uses her talents in a new leadership position.”
Moving Forward…
When asked about the high school’s biggest changes since her arrival in the summer of 1995, Ms. Cetner proudly rattled off a number of notable accomplishments: AP course enrollment and success, accessibility of challenging coursework to students at all levels, graduates’ admissions to prestigious colleges and universities, and the introduction of a new era of technology, to name a few.
On the topic of technology, Ms. Cetner expressed excitement at its integration with teaching and learning.
“I feel that [technology] is preparing our students for the future,” she said. “I remember when I came here, I was given my first email address. That was in ’95. And I was thinking, ‘Am I ever going to use this?’ And now I can't live without technology; Google is my life.”
She also referenced the strain of pandemic era remote learning and lauded the school and its staff for being ahead of the curve when it came to adapting on the fly. It was still hard work, but the high school’s ongoing progression toward hybrid—or nontraditional—learning made the transition that much easier.
“Our focus has also been on mastery,” Ms. Cetner said. “Are we grading for compliance? Did you get it in on time? Or are we giving you multiple opportunities to demonstrate that you get it, that you know how to do it and are committed to it?”
Technology, she said, has helped speed up this process and given students seemingly endless ways to access their learning aside from the traditional Scantron sheet or Blue Book essay.
“You can demonstrate your mastery in so many different ways,” Ms. Cetner said.
Even the evolution of social media has benefitted the school—more specifically, Ms. Cetner’s own Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts that are dedicated to chronicling the school’s happenings. She has always wanted to “own the narrative of Bourne High School” and that narrative is popular with both students and parents on social media, but her Instagram page, @thebourneadvantage, is the big hit.
“My tagline is ‘Life at Bourne High School as I see it through the lens of my iPhone,’” Ms. Cetner said. “What I get a kick out of is when I walk into classes and the kids know, they’ll be like, ‘Ms. Cetner, for the Gram!’ and they’ll pose.”
Don’t be fooled by the poses, though—everything on Ms. Cetner’s pages give a 100 percent unfiltered and unscripted peek into life at Bourne High School.
“I go to a lot of stuff,” Ms. Cetner said, “so I just like to capture it and I like to share it because it’s just such a special place. My goal is I want everybody to know it, and you can’t make that stuff up. Even though they may pose, what you’re really seeing is what’s going on at Bourne High School... It’s not staged, it just is.”
But the real, most significant change at Bourne High School, she said, was essentially the transformation of the school’s ethos.
“The biggest change is really transforming the school from more of a traditional college prep school to one that is really focused on supporting all students, regardless of what their paths are beyond high school,” Ms. Cetner said.
A strong believer in equity and access, Ms. Cetner said she feels the school has moved in a forward direction that pushes “the philosophy that all students can perform well and at high levels if you just provide them the supports to get there.”
The change, she said, came from the need to give students a way to really see themselves in their coursework—getting them to ask questions like “Why does this matter?” and “What opportunities are available to me if I take this course?” were the goal, she said. With curriculum additions such as Innovation Pathways, students at all levels can now take classes geared toward fostering interest and success in their chosen field.
“We want to make sure we leave as many doors open as we can,” Ms. Cetner said, with an apology for her long-winded answer. “It’s crazy, the evolution of teaching and learning. And it’s a heavy lift on the teacher side of it, but I’m just always so impressed with how they roll with it and how they roll up their sleeves and do the work to help implement all this stuff. It think it’s just great, those are the things I’m most proud of.”
…And Moving On
When the conversation broached the question of what she will miss the most, Ms. Cetner’s sentimental demeanor was palpable—both excited for the future and sad for what was being left behind. She both laughed and cried when she said she will most miss her colleagues, her students, their parents—basically everyone.
“I work with so many amazing [people],” Ms. Cetner said. “I don’t know why I’m upset because I’m happy, I’m really happy that I’ve had such a great experience; but I’m going to miss the people I work with and the kids, the climate and culture.”
Though she will miss those things dearly, she added that she has no regrets about her time spent here. Even though she lives and raised her family in Plymouth, both of her daughters “grew up in the walls of Bourne High School,” going to theater performances, Friday night football games and everything in between.
Even being away at college didn’t stop them; Ms. Cetner remembered one Friday night where one of her daughters made a surprise appearance at one of BHS’s spring musicals, with college friends in tow.
“It was just cracking me up, but she was telling her friends that these shows are unbelievable and they were like, ‘Let’s go,’ so they all came down,” she recalled. “It was cute because it wasn’t provoked by me, she’s an adult. I think that’s part of it—it’s become such a part of our life. I think that’s important.”
As of July 1, Ms. Cetner is officially the principal at Marshfield High School. She explained that the switch was more the result of seized opportunity than a real desire to leave Bourne behind.
“I like to continuously learn and grow; even on my résumé, you can see that every five or six years I would change my role,” she said, adding that her 12-year stint as principal was the longest she has ever been in one position.
Marshfield is closer to her home and she is familiar with the town, she said. And although its high school is much larger than Bourne’s, she is excited about the challenge and sees it as a good opportunity.
“I know it sounds crazy,” she said of her reasoning, “but it was as simple as that.”
The welcome she has received from Marshfield High and the community has been overwhelming, Ms. Cetner said, but she is “super excited” and looking forward to both her own transition into principal as well as aiding in that of Bourne High School’s newly appointed principal, Lisa Maguire.
“I’m really committed to making the transition a successful one,” she said, “because I obviously care so much about the school and the district and the kids and my staff.”
And as for her coveted Bourne High School social media accounts? No one should panic; they will not be going anywhere.
“I don’t want to delete the past,” Ms. Cetner said. “It is a little bit of a time capsule, for me and other people. I don’t think it’s something I would ever delete.”
While it is unlikely that the accounts will be passed on after her departure, Ms. Cetner has worked too hard at virtually commemorating the small things at BHS to just delete them.
“You have to work really hard to get your story out there,” she said, and when it's a good one, why not share it, right?