OXFORD — A vision quest has begun for the Oxford Hills School District.

Superintendent Rick Colpitts told the Board of Directors Monday night that they will be part of a districtwide effort to develop a vision for providing students with what could be a vastly different educational environment than the one they see now.

“We have to think about schools in the future,” Colpitts said. “The real question is: Will you plan for a change or not?”

Colpitts presented an update on plans to create a mission statement and a vision for the school district that promotes the current district strengths, such as quality of education, but incorporates changes that have taken placed in education over the last 10 to 20, years including laws that created national education standards, charter schools, supervisor evaluations and student assessments.

The idea is to develop a brief mission statement and a comprehensive vision plan for the future of OHSD.

“If this is what we want to accomplish, this is how we look when we’re doing it,” Colpitts said, referring to the mission statement and then the vision plan.

It is an idea that is being developed throughout Maine school districts as many try to move away from the late-19th-century “assembly-line” design of public schools that dates from the Industrial Age to a customized learning environment for the individual student.

Several schools in Maine, including Portland, Winthrop and Auburn, have already developed their visions and are beginning to implement them. Each vision is tailored toward the individual school district, Colpitts said.

The groundwork was laid for the mission statement during the last school year through a series of some 30 forums with community leaders, parents, teachers, students and others, Colpitts said. He will present that one paragraph statement to the School Board for approval at its next month’s meeting.

Colpitts said he will also be looking for grant money to hire a facilitator to help develop the district’s vision plan. The board will appoint a visioning committee, and the gathering of community-wide feedback will continue.

School Board members said they were enthusiastic about the process.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Jared Cash, one of Norway’s representative to the board, said.

In other business, Ron Kugell was unanimously re-elected chairman of the board. Don Ware was unanimously re-elected vice chairman for another year.

Four members were unanimously reappointed to the Region 11 board, including Frank Blauvelt, Anita Hakala, Dale Piirinen and Gary Somers.

The Board of Directors unanimously agreed to approve a bid of $24,500 to have the chimney replaced at the Rowe Elementary School in Norway and agreed to purchase three new Bluebird buses from O’Connor Motors. The School Board’s Finance Committee will work out a lease/purchase agreement with the company.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link