FARMINGTON – SAD 9 maintenance workers gave the inside of the W.G. Mallett School a new coat of paint this summer and have started on the exterior.
Dave Alexander, Dorothy Enman and Joyce Smiley worked on ladders Thursday as they gave the front entrance a new coat of white paint.
“We’re trying to get it all done but time is not with us,” Alexander said Thursday. “We’re trying to make it look good for the kids.”
They figure they’ll at least get the white painted on the front of the brick building before the students arrive on Tuesday, Aug. 30. That is the opening day for students in kindergarten through grade nine in the district. Students in grades 10 through 12 start school Wednesday, Aug. 31.
“We’ve done quite a lot of work on the facilities,” Superintendent Michael Cormier said Wednesday.
The summer projects ran the gamut from roofs and floors to bleachers and athletic fields.
Five new administrators have replaced those who have retired, transferred or taken jobs elsewhere.
Mt. Blue High School students will see several new faces, including new Principal Joe Moore; new Assistant Principal Monique Poulin, who transferred from the Mt. Blue Middle School; and new Athletic Director Scott Walker.
Todd Demmons is the new assistant principal and athletic director at the middle school. Tracy Douglass is the new principal of the Mallett School and Darlene Paine is the new principal at the Cushing and Academy Hills Schools in Wilton.
Reva Merrill will continue as the interim director of the Foster Regional Applied Technology Center while Director Glenn Kapiloff continues his military service in Iraq. Melissa Williams, culinary arts teacher, has stepped up to serve in Merrill’s position as interim student services coordinator. Sean Minear, who served in that position last year, has gone back to teach culinary arts, Cormier said.
There has been a very small turnover of teachers this year, he said.
New science material will be introduced into the classrooms to go along with the district’s new science curriculum, Cormier said.
Policy amendments this spring emphasize that students bringing vehicles to school have the responsibility to know what is in their vehicles when they bring them onto school property, Cormier said.
SAD 9 directors amended district policy in June after a student drove his brother’s vehicle to school and there was handgun in it, which was discovered by the school resource officer during an unrelated search of the vehicle.
Cormier said he expects enrollment to stay the same or to drop slightly, as has been the trend for the last nine years. But he doesn’t know for sure, he said, because there have been a lot homes in the district changing hands.
“I’m very much looking for a smooth start to school,” he said.
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