Wiscasset School Committee

Schlein’s retirement, sixth grade’s possible move also on tap

Thu, 01/19/2017 - 12:15 pm

SUSAN JOHNS

Wiscasset and Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 are still considering an arrangement to let district students take prekindergarten in Wiscasset, officials confirmed. The district is also interested an exploring another idea with Wiscasset, involving all grades, according to RSU 12 Superintendent of Schools Howard Tuttle.

District board representatives will attend the Thursday, Jan. 26 meeting of the Wiscasset School Committee, Tuttle said. The monthly meeting is at 6 p.m. in the Wiscasset Middle High School library. It will be the second consecutive month a possible pre-K plan with the RSU has come up, and Superintendent of Schools Heather Wilmot anticipates the topic of other grades will also be discussed.

RSU 12 representatives have “expressed that if students from Westport and Alna accessed pre-K programming in the Wiscasset School Department, that they would also expect for those students to be able to access continued programming in our schools,” Wilmot writes in a Friday, Jan. 20 response to questions from the Wiscasset Newspaper.

“This has not been discussed with our School Committee yet, but from my perspective and in my role as Superintendent of Schools, this is something that I would consider to be important too. The PreK program relationship would be through an agreed upon contract if both Committees were interested,” Wilmot explains.

The newspaper contacted Tuttle and Wilmot after Ralph Hilton, an Alna representative to the district’s board, brought up the ongoing talks during an Alna selectmen’s meeting Jan. 18.

Hilton noted that under the withdrawal agreement for Wiscasset’s exit from the district, Wiscasset has been taking district high school students who have been “disinvited” by, or not allowed to attend, other schools. The RSU wants to see what else could be set up with Wiscasset and is doing so as the two negotiate on prekindergarten, he said.

In an email response to questions, Tuttle writes: “(The district) would like to find a school district that will take all its students who choose to go there PreK through 12.”

Tuttle further states, “This idea ... has been discussed informally with Wiscasset officials during informal discussions about PreK.”

He said district board representatives plan to attend Thursday’s meeting “in order to have a more formal discussion about a possible agreement between the two districts.”

In December, Wiscasset School Committee member Chelsea Taylor was picked to represent the panel on an ad hoc committee to look at expanding the pre-K program. “Representatives from RSU 12 and the Wiscasset School Department recently met to further discuss this matter,” and at that time the RSU representatives expressed the interest in other grades, according to Wilmot.

Wilmot expected to give further information about the ad hoc committee meeting in her superintendent’s report Thursday.

With the Maine Department of Education’s approval, Wiscasset Elementary School’s pre-K recently added an all-day option. The pre-K is in its second year.

Also on tap Thursday, the school committee will take up the end-of-school-year retirements of WES Principal Mona Schlein, WMHS secretary Sonia Pearson and WMHS guidance secretary Margaret Scally; the agenda, released Friday, also lists a discussion on moving sixth grade from WES to WMHS. WES currently houses pre-K through grade six; WMHS, grades seven through 12.

On sixth grade, nothing has been finalized, Wilmot said Friday. It’s a recommendation she wanted the committee to consider, so at this time it’s a discussion point, Wilmot explained.

Asked about the search for Schlein’s replacement, Wilmot said a plan had not been finalized but she anticipates the search will be similar to others she’s done in Wiscasset with an advisory committee, community and staff survey, student tours, a second interview with her, and site visits, candidates’ remote presentations, or both.