Amy Molina, Hartford High School’s new principal, spent a recent Sunday in the parking lot with a paintbrush and 50 seniors.
The school had never let students paint their parking spots before. Molina and senior class president Jackson Whitney came up with the idea over the summer, and she wasn’t sure anyone would come.
“Three kids could have shown up. They could have been like, ‘Who’s that new person doing stupid things?'” she said. Instead, there was music, food and a full lot. “That’s the stuff I love about schools.”
Molina took over July 1 from Nelson Fogg, who retired. It is her first time running a school after 25 years at U-32 Middle and High School in East Montpelier, first as athletic director and then as assistant principal. A committee led by Superintendent Caty Sutton chose her from a dozen candidates.
Her salary for the 2026-27 school year is $141,175; the job was advertised at $91,000 to $140,000.
She said she did not come to overhaul the place. This year’s changes came from listening to what she called “the amazing adults in this building and the really cool kids,” who told her: “This is a great place, and if we did this, it would be even better.”
Much of her early work, she said, is about belonging. Molina said Hartford’s chronic absenteeism rate — the share of students missing at least 10% of school days — is just under 20%. That would put the school below Vermont’s statewide rate of 25% last school year and a national rate of about 23%.
The biggest factor in whether a student shows up, Molina said, isn’t friends — it’s having at least one adult at school who knows them. Teacher training before classes began focused on the small things, she said: standing in the doorway to welcome kids into class each day, and telling a student who missed the day before, “Hey, I missed you yesterday. It’s really great to see you.”
The school also leans on Link Crew, a program in which juniors and seniors mentor first-year students. This summer, three teachers trained about 40 upper-level students, who ran first-year orientation on their own and will meet with their first-year students through the year on things like studying for finals and choosing classes.
Molina was invited to say hello at orientation, she said, “and then I was basically told to leave.”
One change already in place is a new cellphone policy. From the first bell to the last, phones stay off and in a bag or locker. Hartford chose not to lock them in pouches, as some schools do — students keep their phones, Molina said, because the school decided to “treat our students like emerging adults.” Six days in, phones have been less of a fight than earbuds, she said.
The building is a harder problem. Hartford High was built in the 1950s and has years of deferred maintenance. PCB contamination has forced the district to close some spaces at the high school and the career and technical center over the past two years, and officials have considered tearing down more than half the building. Molina said some rooms still can’t be used.
“This is a school the community is going to have to take a look at in the next couple of years,” she said.
Molina is a former college basketball player and coach at St. Michael’s College, Molina said there’s no real difference between coaching a team and running a school. “Come here, work hard, learn, have fun,” she said. “I think it’s a really good way to live your life.”
