'WHERE I NEED TO BE'

Amanda Goyer is going back to school and she couldn’t be more excited.

After spending the past year as an educational consultant for the PAX learning program in the diocesan schools, Goyer is taking over as principal at Sacred Heart School in Troy.

“I loved the PAX program … but I knew that I needed to get back into a school because that’s just where I felt I needed to be,” Goyer said. “I feel like I’ve been here for years, I feel very much at home. This is the place where I need to be.”

Goyer started her teaching career at St. Mary’s Academy in Hoosick Falls where she taught for nine years before becoming assistant principal and later principal of the school. Goyer led St. Mary’s for two years until the school closed in 2019. After the closure, she said, “I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself.”

Goyer said putting her trust in God helped keep her on track: “I’m a believer that everything happens for a reason, and so having PAX (which is a set of strategies to help students learn important self-management skills while collaborating to make their classroom a peaceful and productive learning environment) was a good transition for me.”

After seeing the job opening at Sacred Heart, Goyer described feeling “this pulling” to apply. “It was like God was saying I need to apply for this. And I did, and here I am!”

A native to the Albany Diocese, Goyer grew up attending Immaculate Conception parish in Hoosick Falls where she volunteered as an altar server and lector while attending Hoosick Falls Central School. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in childhood education and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from SUNY Plattsburgh.

While a teacher and principal by trade, Goyer said guiding a school during a global pandemic is new grounds to navigate: “Never did I imagine when I came back to school this would be the environment in which we would be in,” she said.

Sacred Heart plans to be open five days a week for all of its classes, pre-k through sixth grade, with proper social distancing and safety protocols in place. Approximately 130 students are registered for the fall; Goyer added that the school’s smaller class sizes make social distancing and spacing out of activities easier.

“I’m looking at it as a challenge,” Goyer said. “There are days I feel like I’m at the top of the mountain and there are days that I’m struggling to climb. But we take every day as it comes and I rely very heavily on my faith that God will help see us through this time and we will be better on the other side from it.”

Goyer currently lives in Cohoes with her husband, Andrew, and their cat, Pumpkin. While this may not be the school year she was expecting, Goyer is still thrilled to be back in school and ready to meet her new families and get to know her students.

“My joy comes from being with the kids, that’s it,” Goyer said. “Helping them or seeing them succeed or seeing them grow, that’s really where I get my joy from.”