BELCHERTOWN — Following 5½ years with Belchertown High School, athletic director Jen Gouvin has taken a full-time role in the same position at Clinton Public Schools in eastern Massachusetts.

Running the athletics department at Belchertown wasn’t her only job, as Gouvin also specialized in work-based learning – which served as an internship program for high school kids. Gouvin helped take students on field trips to expand their horizons and see the different types of jobs available for them in the future; she guided them to find their strengths and passions.

At Clinton, Gouvin can take on the full-time athletic director role – focusing solely on athletics. Clinton has a full middle school program (Belchertown does not), and although there are a few more co-ops which Clinton is not the host of, Gouvin felt the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Her husband works at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. A move out east needed to happen eventually. Gouvin’s plan was to wait a bit longer, but the full-time athletics appeal couldn’t be ignored.

“I had really hoped to wait a year or two, but I got a couple of offers and there were just too many good opportunities to pass up,” Gouvin said. “Clinton was just a good fit for me. It’s in a great area, they have a great school system and their middle school program was a huge draw as well.”

Since Gouvin started at Belchertown in January of 2019, there has been an increase in participation in every single sport at the school. Given the overall landscape of sports in western Massachusetts (numbers continue to decline across the board), that’s an impressive feat over a five-year span.

Of course, her decision to leave didn’t come without stressful, sleepless nights. Gouvin’s strong relationships with the faculty and students at Belchertown made it difficult. Aside from athletics, Gouvin took pride in aiding the students career-wise. She helped a handful of them land internships and made it a priority to develop connections deeper than surface level.