麻州官方新闻报道 | 她的新使命：重振春田私立学院

Angelene Huang has become the new operator of Springfield Commonwealth Academy at the former MacDuffie School campus on Maple Street.

By Jeanette DeForge | jdeforge@repub.com

SPRINGFIELD – Angelene Huang thought she had overcome every problem and was ready to open a summer academic camp at her newly acquired Springfield Commonwealth Academy.

Past due bills were paid. Problems with student visas that threatened a shutdown by Homeland Security were fixed. A major cleanup of the library and academic building filled 14 trash bins and dorms were renovated.

Then two weeks into the first summer camp, on July 9, a 50-year-old pipe valve burst, creating a geyser and flooding the first floor of the academic building.

Little has been easy since Huang decided to take control of the private school on Maple Street, becoming the third owner since MacDuffie School left the campus in June 2011. But she is confident she can turn the struggling private school into a shining star in Springfield.

“I’m very good at crisis management,” she said. “I understand business. I understand technology. I understand people.”

So on April 1 Huang took her first look at Commonwealth Academy. After about six weeks of spending time on campus, doing research and negotiating with John Foley, who holds the mortgage for the campus, she officially took control of the school from the former investor and operator. The place had essentially been abandoned.

“I knew this school was having trouble and I was looking to have my own school,” Huang said. “I said to Mr. Foley ‘Give me a chance to see if I can save this school.’ I wasn’t sure it could be saved.”

Months into the project, Huang has hired staff, recruited students, developed a curriculum and is confident she can turn around the campus which has been struggling for years.

Not her first ‘save’

Huang, who grew up in a poor village in China, holds degrees in civil engineering, computer science and business management. She has worked in technology, construction management, hedge funds and started her own online school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite problems the Springfield school was facing, Huang said she is excited about the challenge and said her camp, which was essentially a dry run for the start of this school year, was a success, despite the burst pipe and other challenges.

This isn’t her first go-around to save a school. In 2023, she arrived on scene to turn around the New York Military Academy, the alma mater of former President Donald Trump and others, which had been struggling for years.

“I got a call from the owner of New York Academy,” she said. “The principal had quit and they saw I had been very successful running the online school. ‘Can you help me?’”

The online school offered classes ranging from yoga and dancing for adults to personal finance and leadership training for teens. It was successful, but as the pandemic came to an end, and classes enrolled fewer people, Huang said she started thinking about her next move.

Running a private military boarding school wasn’t in her plan. But Huang jumped in with both feet. In a year, she recruited 90 students, cleaned up the campus and added innovative classes. As her contract was ending, Huang said she offered to buy the New York school, but owners declined.

Managing a school opened her eyes. Since she was young, Huang said she had raised money and founded charities especially to help her small hometown in China and now, as a mom of four, she realized she could make a difference teaching and mentoring young people.

Springfield Commonwealth Academy seemed the right place to do it because, just like New York Military Academy, the school was struggling.

“I wasn’t even sure this school was going to be saved,” she said.

Tornado’s aftermath

At the time the academy had been run by an investor, also from China, who had taken over in 2018 from John Foley. He turned Commonwealth Academy into a private school focused on teaching student athletes mainly who play basketball and baseball.

But the school was failing. The operator was late with property taxes, water and sewer charges and other bills, building maintenance had been put off and paperwork was neglected and had given up.

Foley, who owns several private alternative schools, including the Center School, and started a dropout prevention program called Project-13 for at-risk youth, signed a purchase and sale agreement to buy the MacDuffie School the day before the tornado hit in 2011. He planned to open a boarding school for inner-city youth financed through private donors.

He did run his Commonwealth Academy for seven years, but the school struggled in part because he spent years in negotiations with the insurance company over a settlement for damages from the tornado. Multiple buildings on the campus continue to be boarded up since he never received the money to fix them.

While he turned over the school to a new operator in 2018, Foley continued to hold the mortgage — and also agreed to do so for Huang.

When Huang took over the school, she didn’t do it alone. Beth Moriarty, head of the school, said she worked so well with Huang she left her job at New York Military Academy to come to Springfield.

She recalled there were a number of boarded-up buildings on the New York campus. Moriarty wanted a building near the entrance to be renovated and reopened, saying it would make a big difference, but was told there was no money for that. When Huang took over, that building was reopened in a short period, instilling confidence in her leadership.

Beth Moriarty, head of school, and Springfield City Councilor Melvin Edwards visit one of the renovated dorms at Springfield Commonwealth Academy with a parent of a potential student over the summer. 

Huang has done the same thing on the Commonwealth Academy campus. The first thing she did was renovate the library, which also serves as the main meeting area in the academic building.

She removed the old carpets and shelves and brought in multimedia devices and modern tables and chairs. “When people come in it is like my demo room. It is how you do business,” she said.

Huang has also taken the opportunity to renovate one of the buildings as a girl’s dorm and cleaned out other buildings, some of which had been sealed after the tornado and barely touched since.

A tour of some of those dorms show an effort to keep historic features, while creating a practical and comfortable space for students to live and study.

“We are working extremely hard. I have many volunteers that have come to help,” Huang said. “I have local people who come and help.”

People have donated furniture to the school and several have offered their time. One tireless volunteer who is a master plumber responded to fix the leaking pipe, even though he had just been in the hospital, she said.

“I can’t believe this community has such good people,” Huang said.

The staff includes 45 full- and part-time employees, with about 30 teachers. That allows the school to meet a goal of offering small classes that provide individual attention, she said.

One of the first things Huang did when taking over in April was to start recruiting students for her summer school. It was late, since parents typically commit in January. She was able to attract at least 35 in 10 weeks, along with staff to educate them.

That recruitment effort continued in earnest and when the school opened on Sept. 4 for the academic year; roughly 125 students were enrolled, leaving all the existing dormitories full. About half the youths are international students and the other half come from a variety of states. Eventually, Huang said she hopes to also bring in local students, including those who need scholarships.

“We are going to have two tracks, a college preparatory track and we will also have an athletic pathway,” she said. “I focus on every individual and will have a very personalized education plan.”

She wants to offer classes in personal finance that would include basic lessons in budgeting was well as more sophisticated subjects like investing, how to calculate a mortgage and even global economics.

The school also offers activities such as rowing and fencing, along with the more traditional basketball and baseball.

She said at New York Academy, one of the ways she was able to recruit students was to offer innovative courses, such as drone simulation. In the summer school this year, a lot of students studied artificial intelligence.

“One of my challenges is I have to find a way to make our school unique,” she said. “There is so much competition, there are so many private schools. Why would they come here?”

Moriarty said she has gone on recruiting trips to South Korea and other places. Several students from New York Academy have followed them to Springfield.

“My philosophy educationally is love. Give them attention and make sure they are happy first,” Huang said. “I create an environment that gives the kids autonomy, plus some supervision, plus some innovation and creativity. You can’t use boring classwork to do that.”

Her efforts to become part of Springfield have not gone unnoticed. A few months ago, Huang, who had been commuting back and forth while she was deciding if she could make a go of the school, purchased the former historic Wesson Mansion on 220 Maple St., where she now lives with her children. Moriarty and several staff members also live there.

She also bought a second building on Maple Street that was used by an acupuncturist.

“We want to restore the beauty and provide more opportunity to a different area,” she said.

‘Perfect alignment’

Her efforts to repair and improve the campus and rebuild the school have received support from City Councilor Melvin Edwards, who represents Ward 4, where the school is located.

Edwards was born in the neighborhood and lives just a few streets away from the school. For years, he has been concerned about the fate of the school and the 17 historic buildings that make up the campus.

At least four of those buildings, such as the historic Wallace Mansion, were heavily damaged in the tornado and have been boarded up ever since. Huang said she hopes to eventually restore those buildings as well as structures that need less work.

She made improvements to the grounds to give sports teams places to practice — and for students to just go outside. Eventually she will add a fence and security gate.

When Huang first came in, no one knew who she was. Edwards said he met with her and was so impressed with her vision he pitched in to help connect her with city officials and others.

“Now they see the investment and they are welcoming her,” he said.

The campus itself is an important part of the city. It can be an economic driver for one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and to see it sit unused would be a terrible loss to the area, Edwards said.

“It is a perfect alignment of the stars,” he said.

Huang‘s project, Edwards said, not only preserves the only boarding school in the city. The turnaround represents a business investment and attracts the interest of people who want to see the preservation and use of historic buildings.

“She has made a significant investment in the property,” he said. “She wants to bring it back to its original glory.”

Huang has started building relationships with businesses and organizations in the community. For example, she has been working with the owner of a new bed and breakfast, Chateau Douillett.

“She told me her vision and I kind of fell in love with the thought that someone is willing to invest in this property,” Edwards said.

Movers bring in a load of donated furniture to spruce up Springfield Commonwealth Academy. The private boarding school on Maple Street has a new owner who is hoping to turn it around.

 (Jeanette DeForge / The Republican)

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