LEWISTON — A sizable search committee has been named to help find a replacement for Superintendent Leon Levesque, who is retiring in December.

The Lewiston School Committee approved the 21-member panel Monday night. On the panel are six of the nine school board members, plus parents, students, businessmen, law-enforcement officials and teachers.

“It’s a wonderful group of community-spirited citizens who have an interest in education and in their community,” said Jim Handy, chairman of the School Committee. He called the search committee members “a prestigious list of individuals.”

The search committee has two co-chairs, Tom Shannon and Joyce Gibson. Shannon is a member of the School Committee, and Gibson is dean of the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn College.

Others are: School Committee members Handy, Sonia Taylor, Leah Poulin, Ronella Paradis and Paul Dumont; parents Mark Jumper and ZamZam Mohamud; state Rep. Richard Wagner, D-Lewiston; and former Lewiston Finance Director Dick Metivier.

Also, teachers Steve Gagne and Crystal Ward; Lewiston High School Principal Gus LeBlanc; Chief of Police Mike Bussiere; City Councilor John Butler; Maine Assistant Attorney General Paul Gauvreau; businessman Peter Geiger, a former member of the State Board of Education; businessman Richard Albert; Joan Macri of College for ME-Androscoggin; and Lewiston High School student Hanan Ahmed.

Last month, a Maine School Management representative recommended keeping the search committee to about 12 members. Lewiston decided to appoint more, because “more weight should be given to the quality and diversity of the committee,” Handy said. The search committee that recommended Levesque also numbered around 20.

The committee will meet with candidates and recommend two to five finalists to the School Committee. The goal is to have a new superintendent before Levesque leaves, Handy said.

The search committee’s first meeting is April 7.

The school board also voted to hire a Maine School Management Association consultant to help in the search. The consultant will help with things such as sending out packages of information to candidates and screening candidates to ensure they meet legal requirements.

More Somali students

In other business, the committee heard a report about English Language Learner students in Lewiston schools, the bulk of which are Somali children.

The numbers continue to grow.

In the fall of 2008, there were 818 ELL students. This fall, there were 925, and as of Feb. 10 there were 964, said Susan Martin, director of the ELL program for Lewiston schools. The current population makes up about 20 percent of all Lewiston public school students.

The school department receives additional money from the state and federal government to teach ELL students. Their numbers have kept Lewiston’s student population from shrinking, meaning less of a loss of state education money.

As the ELL population increases, regular classroom teachers need support helping all students reach standards, Martin said, adding that teachers are being trained and coached to better teach students learning English.

High school graduation is the goal of the program, but all graduates must meet the same requirements. That means students arriving in the United States with little formal schooling need more time, Martin said.

Of the current ELL students in high school, 32 have been identified as needing more than four years to graduate, Martin said. Beginning in 2008, Lewiston educators began meeting with every high school student and their parents who need more than four years to graduate.

It’s not surprising that some students need more time, Handy said. “If any student from Maine had to learn Chinese, Arabic or Danish, how much time would they need?” he asked. The learning of languages carries over to every other discipline, including math word problems and reading instructions on how to build a personal computer or read a recipe, he said.

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