From what incoming Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot observed at her first Wiscasset School Committee meeting on Feb. 26, she will be working in a town that cares about its schools.

“There is a good, positive energy (and) a level of commitment here,” the Brunswick woman told reporters after the committee unanimously agreed to her hire.

Wilmot is the third superintendent since the Wiscasset School Department opened in July 2014, and the first who will not be serving as a temp. Her contract is for three years, Committee Chairman Steve Smith said.

He and Wilmot noted her interest in staying longer.

“My goal is to have a long-term commitment to a community,” she said.

That’s why the contract is longer than it typically would be for a new superintendent, Smith said.

“We’re very happy to offer that,” he said. “We’ve made the commitment to her as she’s made to the Wiscasset schools.”

Wilmot’s start date is July 1. Until then, the Newburyport, Massachusetts, native will be preparing for her new job and finishing out her current one as assistant superintendent of schools for Lisbon and Lisbon Falls. Like Wiscasset, the two towns used to be part of a larger school district.

Wilmot, 35, previously taught second graders and fifth graders in the Buxton-area, Bonnie Eagle school system.

Wilmot holds a bachelor’s degree in education from St. Joseph’s College and a master’s degree in literacy from the University of New England, where she also earned a certificate of advanced graduate study.

Wilmot expects to graduate in August from a doctoral degree program in transformative leadership, an approach that looks at organizations as whole systems. 

“It’s about ... how all the smaller parts and larger parts impact each other, how the community, the parents, the students and staff interrelate in order to promote positive change,” she said.

Her studies have included how to help a school system look at short and long-term change.

Few Maine superintendents have doctoral degrees, Smith said. He called Wilmot young and energetic.

“We’re all very excited to have her,” Smith said.

After WIlmot’s second interview with a panel of teachers, parents and others, the support for her was unanimous, Smith said; one panelist asked if they could run out to the parking lot and catch Wilmot, he said.

“I think you’re going to fit in very well,” School Committee Vice Chairman Glen Craig told Wilmot.

After the committee voted Wilmot in Thursday night, Smith got up from the committee’s table in the Wiscasset High School library and headed for the audience to give her and her husband Noah Wilmot each a red hooded sweatshirt bearing Wiscasset’s wolverine mascot.

The new superintendent received applause from around the room as she held hers up. Then Wilmot jokingly asked if the shirt went with her shoes.

Red and black go with everything, Wiscasset High School Assistant Principal Sara Ricker said.