Thanks, Thanks – Haskell, Gabriel retire from Winthrop School System

Retiring Middle School Principal Zoe Haskell and guidance counselor Edna Gabriel are pictured outside the school Tuesday.

By Cary Shuman
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Two long-time leaders in the Winthrop School System spent their last official day of work at the Winthrop Middle School Tuesday.

Winthrop Middle School Principal Zoe Haskell and guidance counselor Edna Gabriel retired from their positions effective June 30.

Haskell was the principal at the middle school for the last eight years, having worked in the school system since 1980.

“If I could do it all over again, I would do it all over again,” Haskell said in an interview at the school on Tuesday. “It’s quite a community, and they’re lucky that all these years, they had just fantastic people, and that’s part of the reason why you stay in the community like this – it’s the staff that you work with and the students, and they’ve all been the best. I wouldn’t do it any other way.”

Gabriel was a ninth-grade English teacher from 1969 to 1982. She has been a junior high and middle school guidance counselor for the past 27 years.

“I’m just very proud that I was able to do something that I love for 40 years here in Winthrop,” said Gabriel. “It’s been a wonderful experience, and I don’t regret one day of it. I loved every moment.”

Gabriel has seen a lot of students continue on to high school and college and raise families in town. “That’s been the real joy to have the children of so many former students, because if Winthrop is going to stay Winthrop, people have to stay, and they have to fight, and they have to commit to the town, and so many families have done that – and that makes me very happy.”