Board of Education Inauguration speech - Monday December 3, 2007

First, I would like to thank my fellow board members for their support and confidence in allowing me to serve a second year as chairman. It is both gratifying and humbling.

This past year has been one of great transitions for the South Portland school department. We have an outstanding new superintendent in Suzanne Godin, a new assistant superintendent, Steve Bailey, a new director of instructional support, Kathleen Cox, and a new assistant director of instructional support, Dianne Patton. It is very exciting to see that after the searches to fill these positions three out of four positions were filled by people from within the South Portland school department. Their promotions exemplify an atmosphere of growth potential that attracts excellent educators to our city. These individuals are examples of the group of professionals that provide outstanding leadership to our schools.

The school board also saw an unusual amount of turnover this past year. Earlier this year, Bill Harris resigned due to medical reasons. Fortunately, Burt Edwards graciously agreed to come out of his very brief retirement from the board to serve out the rest of Mr. Harris' term. In August, Mark Reuscher, after several years on the board also resigned. Lastly, Steve Onos made the decision not to seek re-election. These four gentlemen, Bill Harris, Burt Edwards, Mark Reuscher, and Steve Onos have shown outstanding leadership, vision, and commitment to the students of South Portland. I thank them for their many years of service. While their experience and knowledge will be missed, their departures have opened the door for new board members who have varied backgrounds and will bring a fresh perspective to our school department. I'd like to welcome Ralph Baxter Jr., Karen Callahan, and Sara Goldberg to the school board.

Moving forward into next year, The South Portland school department will face many new challenges. We will first need to deal with the complexities and uncertainties of the school consolidation law. While South Portland will remain an independent district, we will still have to comply with the other aspects of the law including for the first time in South Portland, the school budget going to the voters for approval. This budget may be even more challenging than recent years as we deal with a difficult economy and significant increases in energy costs. We may also need to look at re-districting at the elementary school level. And while the voters did not approve the plan for renovating the high school, significant issues still exists and will need to be addressed. These challenges, however daunting, will be met by working collaboratively with students, parents and city officials.

A year, however, shouldn't be defined by its challenges, but by its successes. South Portland continues to consistently score higher than the state averages on standardized tests. We continue to graduate and send on to secondary education 85% of our students. Everything positive that happens in our schools starts in the classroom. We have a team of talented, highly motivated teachers as shown by Brian Jandreau, an English teacher at the high school who was honored as a Milken Foundation Educator, one of the highest national awards for a teacher. Brian would be the first to tell you that he is able to provide the quality education to his students because of the culture of excellence that has been established here in South Portland. That culture extends to all aspects of the school department, from the bus driver who picks up the students first thing in the morning, to the maintenance worker who produces a clean safe environment, to the support staff in our schools, to the teachers and administrators and school board. Collectively, we are responsible for educating the workers, scientists and leaders of tomorrow. I look forward to another successful year. For as our superintendent said on the first day of school at the staff breakfast, "Failure is not an option".