By Amanda Estes

Staff Writer

    Tuesday marked the end of summer vacation and the
start of a new school year for students in South Portland and Cape
Elizabeth.

    School administrators across Maine spent the summer
exploring their options in regards to the governor’s school
administrative reorganization law and drafting letters of intent to be
submitted to the department of education. South Portland and Cape
Elizabeth both announced their intentions to remain independent despite
earlier discussions about consolidating the two districts. South
Portland qualified for an exemption because it’s student population
exceeds 2,500. Cape Elizabeth also qualified for an exemption under the
law’s “high performing, highly efficient” clause.

    While the two districts still need to develop
alternative plans for cost savings, last week, the more pressing matter
was welcoming students to the start of a new school year.

    South Portland High School was preparing to welcome
a student body of nearly 1,000 students including three foreign
exchange students from Costa Rica, Taiwan and Sweden.

    Principal Jeanne Crocker said she is also looking
forward to the opportunity for residents to participate in a series of
building tours.  

    “We will help them to understand the needs of the
different parts of the building because it does vary depending on the
age of the building,” Crocker said.

    Tours have been scheduled for: Sept. 24 at 6:30,
Sept. 30 at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m., Oct. 6 at 4 p.m., Oct. 21 at 1
p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and Nov. 3 at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.

    According to the Secondary Schools Facilities
Committee, part of the building dates back to 1952 and it has been some
time since the building met codes. The renovations will also provide
more space for educational programs. On May 21, the city council voted
to include a referendum on a $56 million bond to fund the project on
November’s ballot.

    Crocker said staff will also be busy preparing for
next year’s visit from the New England Association of Schools and
Colleges (NEASC), the regional accrediting association. Crocker said
every 10 years, high schools throughout the country spend about two
years conducting an “exhaustive self review.”

    “We are going to be working very hard and completing
our self evaluation in preparation for that visit,” Crocker said.

    At Cape Elizabeth High School, Principal Jeffrey
Shedd said the 600 incoming students could expect to spend more time in
science class and gain more hands on experience by participating in
more lab work. The goal of increasing lab time by 17 percent, Shedd
said, is to not only provide a strong foundation for future scientists,
but to also strengthen students’ analytical skills.   

    Shedd also said the school has a “new system in
place for monitoring and hopefully catching more quickly kids that may
be struggling and help them perform better.”

    “That’s really in response to a legal initiative at
the national and state level–it’s called Response to Intervention,” he
said.

    The objective of the program, Shedd said, is to
encourage schools to provide additional help for students who may be
falling behind their peers before referring the student to a special
education program. Shedd said the program advocates that schools start
thinking of special education as a last resort rather than the only
option.

    The High School Achievement Center is a place where
students can currently go to receive extra help with their academic
work. For the past three years, the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation
has funded the center, however, Shedd said part of next year’s budget
discussions will be looking at ways to fund the program.  

    Shedd said the program is an asset to the school, as it doesn’t take away from teachers’ instructional time.

    “That’s a place where students can go during their
study hall period and either get a conference about their writing with
a trained staff member, get training on computers on PLATO
(instructional) software, or get one on one tutoring with peers or
staff,” Shedd said.

    Steve Connolly, principal of Cape Elizabeth Middle
School, said staff is working to build capacity in the school’s
curriculum, particularly for science and language arts, and create
consistent curriculum language from one grade to the next.

    “It’s timely for us–while we do well in reading, our
writing scores are not where we like to see them,” he said. “We feel if
you’re not improving, you’re losing ground.”

    In terms of science, Connolly said students tend to
do very well in biological science, but are not as strong in physical
sciences. He said the school will be conducting collegial visits to
other schools such as Yarmouth, Falmouth, Greely and Bangor to see how
they go about constructing cohesive curriculum plans for those areas.

    Connolly said the school is also continuing to
develop technological tools such as laptops for seventh and eighth
graders, interactive SMART boards and the PowerGrade program, now in
its second year. PowerGrade provides electronic access to teachers’
grade books.

    Cape Elizabeth Middle School is also implementing Response to Intervention, Connolly said.

    “With all of our students, we’re trying to figure
out how do you raise the floor?” Using Maine Educational Assessment or
MEA standards, Connolly said the school will aim to raise students up
to the next level, whether they fail to meet standards, partially meet
standards or meet standards.

    The roughly 557 incoming students will also have an
opportunity to participate in community team days, a program in which
students will work in small groups with an advisor on one or two
activities per trimester. Connolly said the goal is to have students
work with the same group and advisor throughout their four years at the
school.

    “This year we’re working toward building a
collaborative sense of the school,” he said. “We’re going to work
toward developing team identities with these groups and we’re going to
work toward fun activities to get these teams going.” He said one
activity will likely be a field day in the spring.

    Margaret Hawkins, principal of South Portland’s
Brown Elementary School spent Tuesday morning outside on the playground
welcoming students and their parents. Although the school’s enrollment
is around 260 students, which Hawkins said is typical from year to
year, the school has added an extra fifth grade and an extra second
grade class. To accommodate the change, Hawkins said staff transformed
the teacher’s room into a classroom.

    “At this point our numbers are such that no teacher
has more than 18 students,” she said. “It’s a great way to start.”

    Brown’s English as Second Language (ESL) program
continues to grow since its beginnings at the school three years ago,
Hawkins said. Currently the program serves 50 students in kindergarten
through fifth grade.

    Superintendent Suzanne Godin has said part of next
year’s budget discussions will include redistricting the city’s four
elementary schools to alleviate overcrowding in some and
underutilization in others. One aspect of the proposed redistricting
plans will likely be educating ESL students in their home schools
rather than at Brown. Godin said the district’s philosophy is that
students are best educated in their home schools.   
 

    Although South Portland’s new class of
kindergarteners will not start school until September 10, Hawkins said
she doesn’t anticipate a lot of anxiety from students or their parents.

    “We don’t see a lot of anxiety because more and more
students do have some sort of preschool experience so they’re used to
saying goodbye to their parents and know they’ll see them at the end of
the day,” she said.