Nicole Goodspeed is the district’s third female principal.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – A principal at a Down East elementary school will soon move west to lead the Cascade Brook School, the SAD 9 board decided Tuesday night.

Nicole Goodspeed will be the only SAD 9 principal with a doctorate, having earned a Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi in education, and will replace retiring principal Tom Taylor at the Farmington school, which serves students in grades four through six.

Goodspeed has also earned bachelor’s degrees from the University of Maine in anthropology and art and a master’s degree from the University of Mississippi in education.

She came to Maine four years ago and has been a principal since July of 2000 at the Princeton Elementary School, near Calais, which has less than 200 students.

SAD 9 Superintendent Michael Cormier said the district was very fortunate Goodspeed was coming, adding that she has been very active in the Maine Principals Association and came highly recommended from both MPA officials and her superintendent.

According to her resume, since being in Maine, she has attended or spoken at conferences about bullying and technology, both of which are hot-button issues in the district.

In a unanimous decision, the board gave her a two-year contract.

She will receive a salary of $60,000 her first year, though it will be prorated because she doesn’t start until Aug. 1, Cormier said, and will be eligible for all the benefits offered to other district principals.

She will join Cheryl Pike, of Cape Cod Hill School, and Arline Amos, of the Weld Elementary School, as the three female principals in the district.

Suspension support

Cormier also told the board that Craig Collins has been appointed Mount Blue High School’s in-school suspension monitor.

Collins, a Mount Blue graduate and an assistant football coach there, has worked at the Western Mountains Renaissance School, a private school in Wilton for students with special needs.

The position at the high school is a new one and is funded by grant money through the end of this academic year. He will be paid hourly.

There is at least one student at the high school each day who is serving an in-house suspension, Cormier said.

According to high school Principal Greg Potter, students get in-school suspensions for minor offenses, like leaving school without permission for the first time.

Students involved in fights or with weapons or drugs receive out-of-school suspensions, he stressed.

The monitor will meet with students, serve as a liaison between suspended students and their teachers and link students to other resources, among other things, Potter said.

Because the position is new, the details are still being ironed out but the principal said he hoped the program would make an impact. Mount Blue has consulted with Windham High School, which already has an in-school suspension monitor.

Student readmitted

After convening for an executive session, the board announced they would let back in a high school student who had been expelled last year. Ervin Snyder, the district’s attorney, read the decision to the boy and his parents.

He was allowed back in, Snyder said, because he had participated in counseling, the school’s principal had supported the readmission and the student had made it clear that he would not repeat the action for which he was initially expelled.

The board will meet next at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, at the high school library. Superintendent Cormier will roll out the proposed budget for the 2004-05 school year for the first time.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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