Interim Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Lyford Beverage on May 28 shut down Wiscasset High School teacher Rob Cronk’s comments on the handling of an issue involving the school’s drafting room.

Cronk began teaching industrial arts, now called technology education, at the school 33 years ago. At the school committee’s May 28 meeting, he reflected on some of the program’s accomplishments and then began airing his concerns about a change he said is planned for the drafting room. A student program known as Jobs for Maine’s Graduates will be using that space, he said.

“It’s my job as the steward of this thing for the last 33 years, to inform the board of my concerns relative to this,” Cronk said during the meeting. Mechanical drawing, architectural design, engineering drafting and design, boatbuilding and lofting, and other courses would be impacted, he said.

“Removing this area from the tech facility has a negative impact,” Cronk said.

Cronk claimed he was not consulted on the change.

As he continued to speak, Beverage rose from his seat in the school library and said, “Mr. Cronk, that is inappropriate. That is reflecting an evaluation statement on that principal right there,” Beverage said, pointing toward Wiscasset High Principal Cheri Towle.

Cronk then resumed speaking and Beverage told School Committee Chairman Steve Smith: “You should stop him.”

Smith told Cronk he appreciated his concerns. “But putting seventh and eighth (grades) into the high school is a difficult challenge.”

After Thursday night’s meeting, Smith said he has immense respect for Cronk; both of Smith’s children had him for a teacher. But Cronk should have asked to meet with the committee about his concerns, not aired them in a lengthy presentation that was not on the agenda, Smith said.

Cronk said later that night that he was feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off him because he had taken his concerns public.

“I wasn’t going to roll over on it, because I feel so strongly about it,” he said about the change involving room 106, the drafting room.

Cronk handed in his written statement to the school committee and gave out copies to attendees who asked for them.

“My greatest fear is that Principal Towle’s sudden decision to annex Room 106, coupled with the current lack of adequate planning, communication and collaboration, has not only an immediate negative impact, but one that will continue to impact the future of technology education at WHS for years to come,” it states.

No programming will be eliminated, Towle said after the meeting. She said she had no more comment.

Talking insurance

The school department may need to hang onto the Wiscasset Primary School building longer than planned to make sure it stays insured, committee members said.

Wiscasset voters on June 9 will consider having the town take over the building.

Town Manager Marian Anderson has said the town could only get liability insurance on it due to issues with the building. A May 4 letter Anderson got from the town’s insurer, Maine Municipal Association Risk Management Services, states that a survey of the building found evidence that water was getting in throughout the building.

School committee members said they hadn’t known of any problems with the roof.

“I’m of the opinion, frankly, that that report is out of line,” Beverage said.

The building’s condition will be undergoing further review, he said. Committee members discussed possibly renewing the current insurance with Maine School Management Association.

A present, a playground update and a power outage

A playground makeover may not be done by the start of school in the fall, when Wiscasset Middle School begins serving as an elementary school, officials said. The $33,692 that voters added to the project’s proposed budget on May 27 has expanded the project, to a point where it may need to be done in increments, Beverage said.

Power went out at the high school and for many other Wiscasset and Alna customers of Central Maine Power shortly before the start of Thursday’s meeting. It lasted throughout the meeting, during which some participants and attendees used the lights on their phones. Remaining daylight and backup lighting partly lit the library; due to the outage and Vice Chairman Glen Craig’s absence, the committee put off a review of policies.

“We can’t read them,” Smith said.

Later in the meeting, Cronk told the committee he had planned a group exercise, but could not carry it out due to the outage.

The department honored retiring educators with a reception before the meeting. Physical education teacher Linda Hanson, retiring after 33 years teaching in Wiscasset, opened a gift of a framed, Dave Cleaveland aerial  photograph of Wiscasset Primary School.

Hansen said she will miss working with the children. “That’s how I define myself,” she said.

But she said she is leaving to focus on other things, including spending time with her family. The Wiscasset resident plans to return to the local schools as a volunteer.

The other four retirees, who did not attend the reception, will receive their gifts later, Smith said. Each is getting a photograph that relates to their service for the department, he said. Those employees are Mary Faulkingham, who has worked in food services; speech pathologist Joanne Chick; and educational technicians Nancy Flahery and Michelle Benham, officials said.