POLAND — Calling it a “vote of confidence,” the RSU 16 board Monday approved a three-year extension to Superintendent Dennis Duquette’s contract.

In turn, Duquette announced plans for the district to undertake a period of serious introspection – and develop a strategic vision for the future of education in Mechanic Falls, Minot and Poland.

“It is time to stand our district upside down,” Duquette said.

Duquette noted that when he was hired in July of 2007, the challenge was to bring the three towns together, to create a single district.

That has been accomplished but, Duquette pointed out, the process of consolidation – and the elimination of sixty-something positions – the district now finds itself lacking a strategic vision for where it wants to go.

“We’ve become stagnant. We’ve got to do more to get our kids turned on to learning in the 21st century,” he said.

Duquette handed board members copies of “Inevitable, Mass Customized Learning,” assigned reading that Duquette hopes will help them gain a concrete vision of how an information age instructional delivery system can replace the present, and severely outdated, industrial age bureaucracy.

Duquette stressed the importance of involving parents, teachers, the community at large, in developing this new vision.

“We can’t do business as usual,” he said.

In other business, the board adopted policies dealing with school volunteers, as well as tobacco use and possession.

The committee referred the question of what to do with funds received from athletic participation fees to the policy subcommittee after rejecting Duquette’s proposal to put it into the technology department.

The committee also applauded Ayesha Farag-Davis, middle school principal, for her decision to keep students’ laptop computers at school during the month of January, in order to review how they are being used.

Farag-Davis said she was prompted to take action following reports that the laptops were possibly being misused, in terms of physical abuse as well as being used to visit inappropriate sites. Farag-Davis will report her findings to the board in February.