The Powerhouse of the School: How Jimmy D’Andrea’s Devotion and Spirit Energizes the AHS Community

• June 5, 2026

Samin Faiz & Areeta Faiz || STAFF WRITER AND SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

“Good mornin’”

“Helloo!”

“Heyyhowyoudoin’?”

A familiar, vaguely Southern cadence breaks you from your stupor. It’s 7:45 a.m. Groggily, you daydream about all the things you’d do to get back under the covers as you draw nearer to those dreadful blue doors.

“How are you?”

You take out an AirPod and offer the principal a friendly nod. You don’t consciously think about how you’re doing, but the smile you thought you forced seems to warm you up inside. He turns to greet the next student without losing an ounce of enthusiasm.

Over the rustle of chairs and sleepy murmur of your classroom, the voice of Andover High School Principal Jimmy D’Andrea recites the pledge. Cheerily, he goes through his usual announcements, praising the recent accomplishments of your peers—just as he did on his Sunday call the night before.

After Chemistry fries your brain, you decide to open Instagram and fry it some more. Before you can feast your eyes on Korean street food, four new stories from @andoverprincipal catch your eye: A comprehensive victory for the basketball team, upcoming state band competitions, an eventful show choir season—and now he’s in Houston with the robotics team?

At long last, the lunch bell rings. You’ve barely scraped the last of your meal when a bubbly “Hello! Trash, anyone?” drifts into earshot. You look up, puzzled, to see D’Andrea—wait, wasn’t he just in Texas?—pushing a garbage bin as he navigates his way through the cafeteria.

After school, he even set time aside for the two authors of this very piece—the ones who badgered him for an interview—minutes after hanging up from a meeting.

You’re not even wondering how he does it anymore. The only question you have left to ask yourself is why?

“Over February break, I spent one day at UMass Amherst with Science Olympiad. The following day, there was the state swim meet, followed by the state track meet. The following Monday, there were a couple of basketball games,” said D’Andrea. “On Tuesday, I was with robotics getting ready for the trip. Wednesday, we had basketball, and Thursday through Sunday, I was in Washington, D.C. with one of our robotics teams.”

Somehow, the most difficult adjustment for him has little to do with his demanding schedule: “I will say, the biggest challenge is that this is the furthest North I’ve ever lived in winter.”

D’Andrea is aware that things can get hectic at times. “But if you love what you do, then you really enjoy it;the students give me energy,” he beamed.

His efforts are most notably documented on his Instagram page. Students, faculty, and families are fascinated all the same.

“It’s super cool that he updates the accounts every hour of every day—I’m all for it,” said senior Kian Keyhan, the captain of the science team. “I know a lot of people outside of the Andover community who also follow the school, like AHS alumni or kids from other schools.”

His active presence—both inside and outside the building—serves to make every student feel respected, valued, and seen. From the start, D’Andrea has devoted much of his time to turning that goal into reality.

“My first impression was that he was genuinely excited to be here,” said Assistant Principal Alicia Linsey. “He took the time to listen, ask questions, and … all summer he held office hours to meet members of our community and learn more about AHS.”

Engineering and math teacher David Strong, who is also a parent at AHS, notes D’Andrea’s efforts at making sure athletic, academic, musical, and artistic achievements are all adequately represented: “He’s very equal opportunity in terms of trying to provide a visible power.”

One pattern D’Andrea noticed early on was that while students felt deeply connected to their extracurricular communities, they rarely ever felt that connection with the school. As a result, helping students feel part of something greater remains one of his top priorities. Encouraging a first-name basis plays an instrumental role in doing so.

“He wants to really … build that connection with the new generation, with us teenagers,” Keyhan added.

“It’s funny because I would say that has happened at every school where I’ve been,” D’Andrea said, though it initially started because students struggled with his last name, which wasn’t uncommon early in his teaching career.

With his approachability, a truly special student-principal relationship blossoms at AHS. Try as you might, however, you can’t get D’Andrea to take credit as he humbly tilts the spotlight to the student body instead.

“I’ve been extremely impressed,” he said. “I think our students are amazing. There are so many incredible things that are happening on a daily basis.”

As a student-centered decision-maker, D’Andrea brings a high level of enthusiasm everyday, whether it’s in meetings, classrooms, or school events. In a school powered by the energy of its community, he is determined to create an atmosphere of compassion and keep pace as a catalyst for student ambition.

“I’m sure all students would agree,” said Linsey. “What really makes Mr. D’Andrea stand out is his presence.”

A Numbness We Can’t Afford

• May 7, 2026

ANYA GOROVITS || OPINIONS EDITOR

In the 365 days of 2025, the U.S. saw 407 mass shootings.These shootings were part of a broader gun violence crisis that caused tens of thousands of deaths across the country, including 226 children and 1,038 teens killed in mass shootings alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive’s official 2025 report.

Most Americans are aware of this stark reality: they’ve watched these numbers rise each year for decades. They watch countless shootings shown hurriedly on the news before returning to their daily lives. In school, students briefly discuss the latest tragedy in their history class before returning to the standard curriculum. Legislators put out quick statements before quickly moving on.

“[Mass shootings] have become a symbol of American culture and American freedom,” said sophomore Ari Friedman. Indeed, they’ve become almost synonymous with America’s identity, present in our history since the 1966 University of Texas Tower Shooting. On the World Population Review’s mass shooting map, most countries report 0–10 mass shootings from 2000–2022. The U.S. reports 109.

A pivotal moment for modern school shooting conversation was the Columbine shooting of 1999, during which two students killed 12 classmates and a teacher. The event fundamentally reshaped how schools, law enforcement, and the public regarded gun violence.

“When Columbine occurred, that was a time that really changed the national consciousness,” said AHS Principal Jimmy D’Andrea. Then came Sandy Hook in 2012, a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school that killed 20 first graders and 6 staff members. Rather than a turning point toward action, this shooting marked a new stage: acceptance. News of recent shootings no longer came as a surprise, and such stories quickly stopped making headlines.

Today, school-age students all around America have become used to yearly ALICE drills. 

“The fact we even have to do these drills is dystopian, but I’ve usually just gone with it. It’s a fact of life,” said sophomore Ari Friedman.

School shootings should never be a fact of life.

“You can’t allow it to numb you, because that’s how things that aren’t normal become normal,” said junior Grace Arnold. Yet that is exactly what has happened. This country has watched children be killed in their classrooms, again and again, and decided that the right to own a gun matters more than the right of a child to survive the school day.

Though communities advocate for “policy not prayers” after each major shooting, nothing ever seems to reach Congress. Around 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks, yet they haven’t been passed, killed by political opposition funded by gun industry lobbying. 

“Profits matter more than people in America,” said AHS history teacher Fred Hopkins. He described how the Second Amendment’s true purpose has become severely distorted. Originally written to enable collective militia defense in a newfound country with limited defense capabilities, the amendment is now interpreted as the right of every American to own murderous weapons. 

Beyond gun legislation, school shootings are driven by a crisis in mental health and an American culture that seems to value silence over support.

Today, America’s emphasis on individualism has created an outlet for violence. AHS junior Tyler Bates expressed that this individualism discourages struggling students from asking for help, leading to their desire for violent expression.

“If people are still angry, this anger and aggressiveness will come out one way or another,” said AHS French teacher Olga Kostousova, who believes that gun restriction laws are very necessary, but they work only if we also address the deeper cause of violence.

Ending this crisis requires both stronger gun legislation and a cultural reckoning around mental health. It requires universal background checks, and real investment in mental health resources at the community level. It requires a culture that stops making shooters famous and starts recognizing people in crisis before it’s too late.

Most of all, it requires refusing to be numb. Many people today feel that there is not much that can be done on a legislative level to achieve peace for American children. They feel that just taking this horror as “a fact of life” is better and simpler than fighting for change. They believe that ordinary people have no voice and no ability to change this cynical symbol of America. Yet it is this belief that limits our ability to stand up for the lives of American children.

“I absolutely have hope that change is possible. But people kind of have to wake up and choose to be affected by it,” said Arnold.

In 2018, survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, organized a national walkout that drew hundreds of thousands of participants. The pressure was enough to push Florida to pass its first significant gun restriction legislation in decades. So ordinary people, students especially, do have power. When enough people speak up, change does occur. But when we remain numb, we refuse change, and we let our schools remain war zones.

Four hundred seven mass shootings in one year. Two hundred twenty seven dead children. 

These are not statistics to scroll past. They are a demand, one that has gone unanswered because too many people have decided to stop asking for change. America, and Americans, have the power to choose differently. The true question is whether we will, before another classroom becomes a tragedy we forget by next week.