OXFORD – After spending most of the last 35 years in public education, SAD 17 Superintendent Mark Eastman may be setting his sights on retirement.
Eastman on Monday asked the Board of Directors to reduce his four-year contract to two years. While that discussion took place in executive session, Eastman said the board afterward voted in public session to honor his request.
Eastman has served as district superintendent for 10 years and said he requested the shortened contract to help the district prepare for his departure. “I wanted them to think about life after Mark Eastman,” he said in a phone conversation Tuesday.
Staying for the next two years will allow him to see the new Paris Elementary School project through to completion, Eastman said. That project is expected to be finished by December 2006, which also would allow Eastman time to wrap up other initiatives he started, he said.
Then Eastman will decide whether to retire or take a new step with his career.
“I’ve turned 60, I have other interests that I might wish to pursue,” he said, later adding that he may teach at the university level or go into consulting. He also may stay on with SAD 17 another year or two if needed, or he may go an entirely different route.
“I love to write and I don’t have much time to do that,” he said, “and that’s sort of been in the back of my mind.”
Whatever comes to be, Eastman plans to spend the next few years helping the district prepare for a new superintendent. “It’s something that we have talked a little bit about informally,” he said, but now that his intentions are on the table the district will be able to move forward. “It’s a good time to start thinking transitions and options,” he said.
Eastman began his career in education in Winthrop, where he taught English and social studies. By the time he was 27, he was a principal in Gorham, which eventually led him to a superintendent’s position in Aroostook County.
After serving there for 10 years, Eastman came to the Oxford Hills region.
“I’m very committed to this district,” he said Tuesday, explaining his desire to help as consideration of a new top administrator begins.
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