NEW! Charter/Virtual School Informational Meeting held on May 3, 2012
An Informational Meeting on Charter/Virtual Schools was convened due to interest expressed by Board members, parents, and community members. Invitations were sent home via school newsletters, notice was posted in the Community Advertiser, and letters were sent to homeschooled and private schooled parents. Invitees also included Town Officials, Provost from the University of Maine at Augusta, an attorney from Brann and Isaacson, President of the Maine Association of Charter Schools, and a representative from K12 Schools. Staff were also notified and invited to attend.
Forty people attended the session hearing brief presentations as well as being afforded an opportunity to ask questions about examples of the programs available, funding challenges and opportunities, collaborations available through the University of Maine at Augusta, and specifics about the legislation. Most felt that the conversations should continue and follow-up meetings scheduled. Everyone present felt that the short window to get an application ready for a fall start-up was unreasonable. A more realistic start-up would be for the fall of 2013.
The Superintendent will present these notes as part of the next Board meeting and discuss this meeting with the new Superintendent.
On March 7, 2012 the RSU 38 Board of Directors unanimously approved a contract for our new Superintendent, Donna Wolfrom, beginning July 1, 2012. She will replace Rich Abramson, who is retiring at the end of this school year after 11 years as Superintendent. Dr. Wolfrom is currently the Assistant Superintendent of Bangor Public Schools.
The Board began our Superintendent Search in October and based the selection criteria and process on the feedback received through a community survey and interviews with town officials and key staff. This information led the selection process and criteria and helped the Board prioritize the characteristics and qualifications our staff, parents, and community members expected in our next Superintendent. Our search committee included representatives from the school board, teaching staff, central office, administration and community. The search committee overwhelmingly endorsed Dr. Wolfrom as our next Superintendent.
Dr. Wolfrom holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Maine at Orono and a Master’s Degree in Literacy from the University of Southern Maine. She has over 25 years of classroom teaching and administrative experience including significant expertise in curriculum, assessment, and literacy. Prior to joining the Bangor Public Schools, Dr. Wolfrom was employed in a variety of roles in the Sacopee Valley school district. The search committee was particularly impressed with Dr. Wolfrom’s deep understanding of curriculum and instruction, her ability to analyze and use educational data, and her use of collaborative approaches to bring about improvements in student learning. We are confident that Dr. Wolfrom will be a strong educational leader for our district.
You may have the opportunity to meet Dr. Wolfrom as she plans to spend time in the district to meet with the Superintendent and staff and attend key board meetings prior to her start date of July 1, 2012. In addition, the Board will hold open house events in the future in order for the community to meet our new Superintendent. After 10 years, this change in leadership will be a big transition for our schools and communities. We look forward to your participation in that transition and in welcoming our new Superintendent, Donna Wolfrom. Thank you for your ongoing support in the education of our students.
RSU #38, Maranacook Area Schools, has been fortunate to have been able to work closely with Dr. David Silvernail and Research Associate Erika Stump in a research project investigating schools that are High Performing and Mostly Efficient. David and Kika have been working collaboratively with all 6 of RSU #38 schools, staff, and administration to improve our schools. The results of their research, as well as significant improvement by most of our schools, have been promising. We look forward to our continued work with both David and Kika.
Results were compared for our schools using Maine Education Assessment (MEA) data and the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) data from 2007 until 2011. Maranacook Community High School, with the recent release of their new data, is one of 10 high schools across Maine that has met all of the criteria to be high performing and mostly efficient. All of our elementary schools have also shown improvement and have begun to meet some of the criteria to be high performing and mostly efficient. The RSU #38 School Board has been very encouraging to the Administrative Team to continue their work with University of Southern Maine and Dr. Silvernail and Erika Stump.
To view a draft copy of the research project and RSU #38's performance on these criteria over the past 4 years, please contact the Superintendent's Office.
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