RUMFORD – The resignation of Mountain Valley High School Principal Bruce Lindberg was accepted with regret at Tuesday’s SAD 43 board meeting.
Lindberg is leaving the district for the headmaster’s position at Lee Academy, a private secondary school about 10 miles east of Lincoln in Penobscot County.
“My reason for leaving has nothing to do with Mountain Valley High School,” Lindberg said Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve been extremely happy with the students, the school, the board and the administration.”
Instead, he said, the opportunity at Lee Academy is one that is hard to pass up.
The 200-pupil school is a diverse, private day and residential school with about 25 percent of the students coming from foreign countries, 25 percent from nearby Indian reservations, and 50 percent from the local area.
“This is a neat opportunity,” he said.
Lindberg has devoted 31 years to public education. After that much time, he said, he thought he’d try private education. As headmaster, he will be sent throughout the world to recruit students.
Lindberg came to the school after serving as principal of Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford, Mt. Blue High School in Farmington, and several other Maine schools. He is a native of Mexico where he graduated from high school in 1970.
Superintendent Jim Hodgkin, who began his tenure at SAD 43 at the same time as Lindberg, said the search for a new principal will begin this weekend with advertisements placed in several state newspapers. The search for a new special services director will also begin this weekend.
Former director Paige Coville left her position in January for a similar position in Eastern Maine. Assistant special services director Diane Taylor-Moore has filled in for Coville since then.
Hodgkin said he expects interviews for both positions to begin in May, with both positions filled before the start of the new school year.
Lindberg is the seventh principal at the high school in 11 years. He replaced Curt-Randall Bayer, who left for a similar position in Idaho.
Comments are no longer available on this story