FARMINGTON – After completing his first year as principal of Mt. Blue High School, Joseph Moore says he is happy with how things have gone, but says providing a more individualized education for students is still his primary goal.
“I think it was a very smooth year in terms of moving forward with the changing in attitudes about what’s best for kids,” he said.
Moore left Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School last year after serving as principal for six years, coming to Mt. Blue in search of a new challenge. At age 52, he has also served as a principal for an elementary and middle school, as well as a teacher and an assistant superintendent.
“I’ve really run the gamut I think I’ve seen almost everything,” he said. “I was just at a point in what I had done at the previous school that I felt I needed a change and needed to do something a little different.”
In the time leading up to his decision, Moore visited both the high school and the town of Farmington, trying to get a feel for what the community and school were all about, and how the former perceived the latter.
He said after getting a good feeling from his conversations with townspeople, he made a special effort to talk to students and really see what they wanted as well. He said those types of conversations should be a key component to education as well.
“Empowering students to feel like they have control over their education and they can make decisions for themselves that will really steer where they go (is crucial),” he said.
Moore took this philosophy and implemented it in writing, altering the school’s previous mission statement to one that included an emphasis on “individually oriented educational programs.”
Moore was not the only new addition to the Mt. Blue administration. Monique Poulin became the new assistant principal, and Scott Walker took over as athletic director. But he says students and parents can expect even more changes over the coming years.
“I think five years from now the students and staff will be looking at a different structure here,” he said, citing major renovations to the building as well as more in-depth conversations between students and teachers. “We have an opportunity here to give students the opportunities to maximize their potential, beyond the textbook, and beyond the classroom, to create the learning opportunities beyond the walls of Mt. Blue.”
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