FARMINGTON – The SAD 9 School Board met Tuesday night to overhaul the teacher evaluation process, expand the Extended School Year Program and hire eight new teachers.
The teacher evaluation process, which gives new teachers feedback to improve their ability to educate, is being overhauled. SAD 9 has been using an evaluation method created in the late 1980s, which gauges the effectiveness of educators by looking at how their classes perform. The new method, which was created by a committee made up of local educators and administrators, is based on 10 teaching standards set out by the state and will place a greater emphasis on the progress of individual students, rather than the class as a whole.
Increased oversight by the principal and other administrators has also been added, with teachers being observed more times.
Also under consideration is the backlash caused by the state’s Department of Education tightening anti-junk food regulations. As candy and other foods can no longer be sold on school grounds, with only a few exceptions, SAD 9 has seen a vast reduction in fundraising effectiveness.
Superintendent Michael Cormier said that it takes nearly six fundraising events that do not sell candy to equal the money earned in events that do sell candy. Cormier expressed frustration with lawmakers in Augusta, saying “I’d like to see some of the people making these rules come forward and run a few fundraisers and take some ownership.”
Also considered was a possible extension to the Extended School Year Program. Students attending the program, which allows struggling high school students opportunities for tutoring during the summer, would need to take a three-hour course on study skills.
In addition, the program would be expanded to allow students who would not qualify for the Extended School Year Program the chance to attend a 10-day tutoring program to build math, reading and writing skills.
In other business, the board met in executive session to determine whether to readmit a student into Mt. Blue Middle School. The board approved the readmission of the unnamed student, who had been expelled after an undisclosed offense.
The school board granted one-year probationary contracts for eight new teachers starting work within the SAD 9 system next September. Teachers Travis Tierney (English), Sarah Smith (math) and Sam Dunbar (social studies) will be going to Mt. Blue High School. Two first-grade teachers, JoAnn Mayer and Tonnie Condon, will be going to Cushing Elementary School.
Two other teachers, Maggie Atkins (kindergarten) and Sandra Jamison (grade 3) will be working at W.G. Mallet School. John Schoen will be going to the Mt. Blue Middle School and teaching alternative education and industrial arts, and Alex Ernst will be going to the Cascade Brook School to teach grade 5.
Resignations were accepted from Diane Wilson at the Foster Regional Applied Technology Center, Donna Churchill from the kitchen staff of the Cascade Brook School, Susan Vogel, an educational technician at Cushing, and Michelle Curtis, an ed tech at Mallet.
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