Wiscasset School Committee

Committee also accepts Kim Andersson’s resignation, hears COVID-19 update; lunch staff award

Sat, 10/17/2020 - 02:12 am

SUSAN JOHNS

Beth Smith helps pull off a surprise sendoff for tournament-bound WMHS student-wrestler Sam Strozier in 2018. File photo

WMHS’s award-winning lunchroom staff, from left, Bonnie Morton, Heidi Thiboutot and Supervisor Katie Bryant. Courtesy photo

Beth Smith helps pull off a surprise sendoff for tournament-bound WMHS student-wrestler Sam Strozier in 2018. File photo

WMHS’s award-winning lunchroom staff, from left, Bonnie Morton, Heidi Thiboutot and Supervisor Katie Bryant. Courtesy photo

Beth Smith wasn’t looking to leave her Wiscasset Middle High School administrative assistant job or the school system she has been part of since 2008. “I just happened to see the job posting. And it felt like it was written for me,” she said in a phone interview Oct. 15, from her new job.

Smith, of Wiscasset, started as Alternative Organizational Structure (AOS) 98’s bookkeeper in Boothbay Harbor Oct. 8. She said her commute has gone from under five minutes to about 20. The new job at the superintendent’s office is a step up in her career and she loves it, she said. “It’s a great place.”

According to Stacey Souza, administrative assistant at Wiscasset schools’ superintendent’s office, Smith was an educational technician at then-Wiscasset Middle School from 2008 to 2014, then moved into the high school job.

“I really enjoyed working with the kids and the families,” Smith said about her years in the Wiscasset system. “It was just a really great experience, and it was just time to move on.”

Meeting in-person and via Zoom Oct. 13, Wiscasset School Committee accepted with regret Smith’s resignation and WMHS alternative education teacher Kim Andersson’s. Souza said Andersson has held that job since 2016, after many years as a substitute. “Both will be greatly missed by both the students and staff and their many contributions to the school department are greatly appreciated,” Souza said of Smith and Andersson via email Oct. 15. “We wish them both the very best in their new endeavors.”

Also Oct. 15, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Terry Wood said the department is looking at every square inch of space to hold socially distanced classes if in-school learning increases. And Wood went over the department’s plans for how it would respond to a COVID-19 case. The draft procedures are at wiscassetschools.org

Wood said whether or not a school closes the day the department learns of a case could depend on the time of day, since families would need to be told so they could be home or arrange child care. “If it’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon, I struggle with trying to send the kids home early,” she said.

WMHS Principal Charles Lomonte congratulated the school’s lunchroom staff for its award from the obesity prevention initiative “Let’s Go!” “Their hard work and dedication brought them this special award,” Lomonte said. “We are so proud of our lunch program and their dedication to our students each day.”