By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

    On June 30 of this year, Wendy Houlihan will step
down from her position as superintendent of South Portland schools.
After five years in the district, Houlihan has decided to accept a
superintendent position in Vermont to be closer to a vivacious
86-year-old mother, a daughter, and three sisters. As Houlihan readies
herself for the transition to a new district, she discussed the unique
challenges South Portland schools will face in the future.

    Houlihan spoke of proposed improvement plans for the
city’s middle schools and high school. She said the secondary
facilities committee, appointed by the school board, recommended that
the city’s Mahoney and Memorial Middle schools be converted into one
school. Houlihan said the committee expressed confidence in getting
state funding for the middle school project.

    The high school presents a greater challenge,
Houlihan said. She explained that the school was in dire need of
renovation, due to the fact that part of the building is 70 years old.

    “Part of it is on pilings and when development went
on on Highland Avenue, the water was directed under the high school,”
she said. An annex, built in the 60s, also presents air quality issues.
She said the high school suffers from a domino effect, in that with
each problem that is revealed, another one lies behind it.

    In 2005, the school board approved the facilities
committee’s recommendations to apply for state funding for the middle
school and pursue renovation plans for the high school. By the end of
March, Houlihan said there are preliminary plans for a board workshop
with the city council to examine site plans for the high school. The
committee is moving towards a referendum vote on the issue. Houlihan
said there are some misconceptions in the community about the need to
renovate the high school because the student population has decreased
over the years.

    “The population of the high school has gone down,
but we don’t have spaces appropriate for educating our students,” she
said. “We are plumb out of space.”

    Some of the benefits of the proposed renovation
outlined by the committee would include updating classrooms and adding
rooms for programs, relocating off campus Special Ed programs to the
high school, and expanding the library.

    “The committee will have to go through an educating
process,” she said. When asked if decreasing enrollment rates are a
concern, Houlihan said it is a factor to consider, but she said that
question “always makes her think of people (she) knows that don’t have
kids, but are some of the biggest advocates for the schools.”

    Any discussion of renovations ultimately leads to
talk of funding and at the start of the interview, Houlihan said she
had just sent next year’s budget off to the printer. She said the
district had yet to hear from the state as to what the general purpose
funding for essential programs and services would be, but she said
compared to the last fiscal year, this year’s budget will not be as
difficult to manipulate. Last year, she explained, the district faced a
$357,000 deficit in revenues. On the other hand, she recently received
a letter stating the district would not be getting the per pupil
professional development funds that every district normally receives.
She said decisions about how that money will be spent will now be made
at the state level.

    When asked for her opinion on Governor Baldacci’s
“Local Schools, Regional Support” consolidation plan, Houlihan said she
was critical of the plan for its “negative attitude towards central
offices and the aggressive nature of its timeline.”

    The initiative calls for the consolidation of
administrative offices to create more classroom funds. South Portland
schools would become part of Region #23, which includes Cape Elizabeth,
Chebeague Island, Cumberland, Falmouth, Gray, Long Island, New
Gloucester, North Yarmouth, Yarmouth, and Portland.  The timeline
calls for the initiative to be fully implemented by July 2008.

    Houlihan said she is not against consolidation, but
the governor’s plan “doesn’t make sense for students” and it will make
it even more “difficult to try and personalize learning for kids.”
Having served as a principal for a large school in Traverse City,
Michigan, Houlihan is familiar with the challenges of trying to reach
each student in a large school.

    One of the aspects of South Portland schools she is
most proud of are the efforts by the teachers and principals to connect
with each student. She said the district benefits from teachers who
recognize the importance of collaboration when it comes to
personalizing learning and helping students who are falling behind.
Teachers and principals, she said, have worked to “raise the rigor” and
raise educational standards for all students.    

    When it comes time to move on, Houlihan said she
will still follow the district’s progress and said, “I would like to
have the great work that’s been going on continue.”

    “We have such creative principals and teachers in
the elementary schools,” she said. She noted the literacy lab at
Skillin Elementary and summer reading programs as important efforts in
helping students get ahead.

    At the middle and high school levels, homework help
and tutoring programs have also been beneficial in raising educational
standards. Freshmen teams were recently implemented at the high school,
based on a concept Houlihan borrowed from Yarmouth High School, where
she was principal for six years. She said the freshmen team program
represents what she calls a “continuous improvement model.” A major
component of this model was hiring an outside group to evaluate the
program’s progress.

    “We’ve done the research and we’re going to continue
to evaluate and tweak (the model),” she said. She identified this
continuous evaluation as part of a “good change process” and a way to
combat fads that can come and go in education.

    In addition to her educational career, Houlihan has
also had a musical career, in which she taught piano and played
classical guitar and the lute, a stringed instrument from the
Renaissance period. Houlihan became so enamored with the lute that she
ordered a lute kit and built her own, complete with a rose carving. The
following summer, she took herself and her homemade lute to study at
Michigan’s Interlachen Music Academy. Within what she jokingly calls
her “checkered past,” Houlihan determined that she has more than 19
years of experience in education.

    Houlihan said she is looking forward to a “new
adventure” in her life, but she said she is first focusing on her
transition out of the South Portland district. Her transition is made
easier by her confidence in Suzanne Godin, who will step up from the
Assistant Superintendent position. Houlihan said she has no doubt it
will be a “smooth passing of the baton.”