This year, Buckingham Elementary School adapted to the major change of new principal, Dr. Joseph Mazza, after former principal Dan Estep ended his seven years there. Mazza is a vibrant leader, with strong passions that revolve around giving both the staff and students a stronger voice, as well as advancing the already productive elementary school with more modern tactics. Additionally, Mazza has had an impressive, vast career, with over twenty-four years in the education department. He is a strong believer in innovation and used to work at his alma matter University of Pennsylvania, where he was the Leadership and Innovation Manager. During a brief interview I conducted with Dr. Mazza back in January, I was able to get a glance at his ambitious plans for Buckingham and learn more about the accomplished new leader at this prominent CB school.
My preliminary goal for this interview was to get an understanding of how Mazza would describe the year, while being four months in, as well as peek into his plans for the future of Buckingham. First, Mazza explained his work style as an educator, saying that he “works for the kids” and that he is “really big on the voice of the people that live here.” He also explained that as a new addition to Central Bucks, he has kept an open mind and made it a point to “understand with empathy” certain aspects of Buckingham, explaining that even though things may not make sense to him, they made sense to somebody earlier and worked well. Mazza described the year as “busy” and explained that he had minimal prep time before the start of school: “we had about two weeks to prepare before the teachers came this summer, and three weeks before the students came, the parents came, all that. So, it was a very short runway.” While it may seem daunting and nearly impossible for a principal to prepare for a whole year in roughly one month, with plenty of experience as an educator, Mazza was well prepared and had already constructed a thorough plan. He explained that he created a two-hundred-day entry plan, spanning from August to February, organizing his goals and plans for the year. This included things such as intake interviews, which he has been distributing to parents and students to gather feedback from others during his time as principal. This has allowed him to be exposed to some issues that have arisen, including unhappy parents requesting placement changes. Other problems have included issues with the heating system, as Mazza explained that classes were dropping to temperatures in the fifties, leaving students to learn in their winter coats. However, he quickly resolved this issue by calling the district out to Buckingham for three weeks until the heating was back to ideal. Other proactive ideas that Mazza has implemented have been installing a leadership team of teachers across Buckingham, called the Principal’s Advisory Committee. This group has been meeting monthly, creating a shared leadership that is used in a variety of ways across the elementary level of Central Bucks. Still, while many achievements have already been made by Dr. Mazza, he has a list full of goals still to accomplish in the future, in order to continue to improve and advance Buckingham. When asked to describe these goals in three words he said, “…I couldn’t come up with three. I boiled it down to five. So, it’s basically listen, relate, support, learn, and reflect.” These have been the core focus when creating goals such as his main goal of honoring the legacy of former Buckingham guidance counselor, Mr. Brian Rosica. Sadly, Mr. Rosica passed away from ALS on March 23, 2026, leaving many devastated in our community. However, it is important to note that at the time of this interview, Mr. Rosica had not yet passed. Mazza explained that a huge focus for this year is having Mr. Rosica continue to be a part of the Buckingham community and to be there for the staff. He noted that it is a very difficult time for the staff members, and he hopes to keep Mr. Rosica as much of a part of Buckingham as he had been before.
During my time talking with Dr. Mazza, I got a fair understanding of his personality and who he is. Simply put, Mazza is two things: innovative and understanding. He showed his desire to connect with the people at Buckingham as equals, and lead not as a tyrannical leader, but as what he described as a “lead learner.” This term refers to the fact that everyone is still always learning, and just because Mazza is the principal, he is still learning everyday as he helps lead everyone. Mazza is also a very creative person, always looking for ways to make school more fun. He described himself by saying, “…outside the box is kind of where I live.” Additionally, Mazza said he feels that school is a place where kids should make memories, and it seems to be one of his main missions to create fun, new programs and ideas at Buckingham in order to help spark vital memory making. One of the ways that Mazza has tried to innovate in Buckingham has been by letting the students be more independent. He spoke on this, saying, “Less things that adults are doing for kids and more things that kids are doing and leading with the support of adults.” Obviously, working in an elementary school, the kids aren’t able to be fully independent yet, however, by working on allowing them to be more self-sufficient, it creates stronger students that will be more prepared for middle school, high school, and the real world, especially with the re-alignment of grades happening. Besides from innovation, Mazza has a huge focus on empathy and being understanding towards others. He explained how even though not all kids have a diagnosed problem or a 504, everyone goes through things, and you never know what might be happening outside of school to affect a student. However, he explained that as leaders, it is vital for him to adjust to be able to help every member of his community. Mazza described all the students at Buckingham as “unique” and that they all need to be supported and looked out for. While Dr. Mazza is certainly a distinctive principal, his many jobs and previous work experience led him there. Mazza has worked as a third-grade teacher, an assistant principal, the leader of an innovation program at UPenn, and principal. As assistant principal, Mazza explained that he did around ninety percent of his job in Spanish. He also explained that he studied abroad, which ultimately helped him to become fluent. Later, Mazza worked as the leader of the innovation program at UPenn, saying that, “They didn’t have anybody or staff that they felt could kind of make some of those things come to fruition, so they asked me…” Mazza credits this as an incredible and growing opportunity, however he felt that he needed the structure and routine of a school, which resulted in him becoming the principal of a school in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was unlike anything he had had to do before, because uniting and leading a school virtually was extremely difficult. However, he explained that this really helped to bring the community together, which was nice especially for him, as he was a new member of the community.
To finish up my interview with Dr. Mazza, I wanted to get a look into his plans for next year. He explained that he has been using this year as a way to get to know both how the district operates, as well as make an effort to know as many people as he can. He also noted that this year, he had to work in a very reactive manner, as he was seeing everything for the first time, and had not had much time to prepare during the summer. However, he hopes that next year, he will be able to switch into a more proactive role, having more plans and experience to deal with different ups and downs throughout the year. Additionally, Mazza wants to help familiarize staff members with various forms of AI, such as Copilot and ChatGPT. Mazza is a big believer in the benefits of AI, seeing it as a tool that can be used to make learning more understandable and fun. He hopes to be able to use AI next year to be able to “blur the lines between their [students] interests… and the things they have to learn in school” in order to “have a much better chance at getting those kids engaged in what they have to learn.” This refreshing take on the benefits of AI is part of Mazza’s main idea of weaving innovation, empathy, and empowerment into Buckingham so that they can harness the vast potential that the school has to offer. Another one of Mazza’s goals for next year is to “get rid of some stuff, spruce up the place… make it look less 1996 and more 2026.” This is very important because of the realignment being implemented next year, which Mazza explained will already lead to construction during the summer. Similarly, the realignment was a major topic for Dr. Mazza, as he has had to deal with helping direct such a major change during his first year as principal in Central Bucks. In order to ensure a smooth transition for the realignment, Mazza has heavily planned different ways to help both the fifth and sixth graders, as well as kindergarten teachers, assimilate to the way things will work next year. For the fifth and sixth graders who will be moving up to the middle school next year, Mazza has prepared visits to Holicong in order to help them know what to expect for such a drastic and intimidating change. Also, Mazza has already started to implement new policies to make the current fifth and sixth grade more similar to what they will experience in middle school: “… small example would be like a homework assignment book. What does it look like at the middle level? Well, maybe our fifth and sixth graders can try using this for the last couple of months of the year just to familiarize themselves with it.” He has also done this for the staff who are moving up to the middle school, as he explained that he has made sure that he is “getting them over there once or twice or even three times before the end of the school year to shadow, to check out what that’s going to be like.” Finally, another new change that comes with realignment is the lengthening of the current half-day kindergarten schedule to a full-day schedule next year. Mazza described that he has arranged to send the two half-day kindergarten teachers at Buckingham, Mrs. Schmidt and Miss Guiliano, over to Coldspring Elementary, where they have already been doing full-day kindergarten classes during the duration of the 2025-2026 school year. Mazza feels that this shadowing will help train these teachers with the longer schedule, so that they “don’t feel like they are going to fall asleep by the end of the day” next year. In all, Dr. Mazza has heavily prepared both the staff and students for the different changes happening next year, while also creating many plans to improve Buckingham for those that will still be there.
Clearly, Buckingham is in excellent hands with Dr. Mazza as principal. He has absolutely excelled during his first year, creating so many memories for both students and staff. Mazza has brought something very unique to the district, and we are all so excited to see the ways that Buckingham will thrive and flourish in the future. Mazza has stepped into his new role as principal with confidence and has already created such a lasting impact on the school in just a single year. Thank you so much to Dr. Mazza for taking the time out of his busy schedule to have this interview with me.
