How in the world did we get to just 5.5 weeks left of school? It seems impossible that we are already counting down the final stretch of another school year. For the class of 2026, “senioritis” is in full swing, for other students, summer calendars are filling up, and the countdown has officially begun. The excitement and anticipation of summer break can almost be felt in the hallways.
For school staff, however, the feeling is often quite the opposite. Instead of counting down what is ending, educators are focused on everything that still remains to be accomplished in the short time we have left together! These final 5.5 weeks are among the most important of the year! They are filled with opportunities to strengthen learning, to deepen relationships, and to celebrate growth. We are working doubly hard to help every student finish the year feeling prepared, supported, and inspired for what comes next.
There is always lots to share this time of the year, so take a quick "peek" into our classrooms over the past few weeks, and then we'll dig into the information!
LAST STUDENT DAY OF SCHOOL & OTHER IMPORTANT DATES
I've been seeing lots of folks asking about the last day of school for the 2025-2026 school year, so I thought I'd share that. Right now, barring any other reasons for school closures between now and June, the last student day in Gorham will be on Wednesday, June 17, 2026. June 17 will be a half-day student day, with students being dismissed according to our usual early-release schedules. Other "big" important dates for the Gorham Schools are below, but please follow your school's weekly updates and websites for more details, as this is just a sample of big district-sized items! ☺
End of 2025-2026 School Year:
- May 27 - Class of 2026 Senior Scholarship Night, 6:00 p.m. at GHS auditorium
- June 3 - Rising 6th-grade family night, 5:30 p.m. at GMS
- June 4 - Senior Celebration Night, 6:30 p.m. at GHS auditorium
- June 5 - Class of 2026 Senior Walk, starting at 9:00 a.m. (will be live-streamed on FB again this year)
- June 7 - Class of 2026 Graduation, 4:00 p.m. at GHS competition field
- June 7 - Class of 2026 Graduation Convoy, 7:30 p.m. through downtown Gorham!
- June 9 - Great Falls Remote Learning Day due to elections (Please go vote!)
- June 16 - 5th-grade celebrations across all 3 elementary schools
- June 16 - 8th-grade celebration, 5:00 p.m. at GMS
Opening of 2026-2027 School Year:
- August 26 - Grades 6,9 & Pre K first day of school
- August 27 - Grades 1-5, 7-8, and 10-12 first day of school
- September 1 - Kindergarten first day of school
MAY IS MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH!
May is nationally recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month. This is a time dedicated to increasing understanding and reducing stigma about mental health and wellness for children, adolescents, and adults alike. Mental Health Awareness Month was first established in 1949 by the organization now known as Mental Health America, with the goal of helping communities better understand the importance of emotional well-being and ensuring individuals feel supported in seeking help when needed. Today, schools across the country use this month to reinforce the message that mental health is an important part of overall health, just as physical health is.
For school-aged children, especially, mental wellness plays an important role in learning, forming relationships, developing resilience, and overall personal growth. At the Gorham School Department, we remain deeply committed to supporting the social-emotional well-being of every student through strong relationships, caring adults, school counseling services, health supports, and safe learning environments where students feel connected and valued.
Mental Health Awareness Month also serves as an important reminder that families are not alone. Parenting and supporting young people in today’s world is challenging. Seeking support, asking questions, and having open conversations about emotions and mental health are all positive things for families to be doing, and we are here to support in any way we can.
Families looking for additional information, strategies, or support resources may find the following organizations and websites helpful.
As always, thank you for your continued partnership and support of our students and schools. By working together as a full community, we can continue to create environments where every child feels supported and empowered to thrive both academically and emotionally.
TECHNOLOGY USE IN THE GORHAM SCHOOLS
Screen time. An important and timely topic for sure, and one that public schools across the country have been encouraging for many years now. In the Gorham Schools, we are very pleased to see many of our families thinking about this topic and working to understand the implications for your children, and we want to partner with you in these conversations.
Currently, there is a national push to limit screen time, both at home and within schools. The question at this level tends to be: How much screen time is too much? Although this is a valid question, in the Gorham Schools, the question we are asking isn't how long students are on screens - it is what students are doing on the screens.
The thing to keep in mind as we all engage in this important topic is that not all technology is created equal. The way that students use devices in schools is fundamentally (or should be) different from social media, gaming, or the passive scrolling that might be used elsewhere. In our schools, we want to use our technology time with students for active thinking. We want our students creating, designing, and collaborating with one another - not just simply consuming information - but indeed using that information to produce something.
As a school, we have always and will continue to fully support balance in the use of technology in our classrooms - especially at the early elementary levels, where hands-on, play-based learning is essential. In all cases of technology use in our schools, we want to ensure that our teachers are using technology to enhance learning, not replace it. We believe that great teaching and instruction isn't about choosing one (no tech) or the other (tech). It is more about blending both with a purpose. It's about understanding when to use the technology tools we have to enhance learning and when technology doesn't need to play a role, and in many cases, shouldn't.
Last month, after hearing from several of our families about technology use in our schools, we created a video that outlines how and why technology is used across grades PK-12. If you haven't already watched it, I would encourage you to do so. It is a little long (30 minutes), but you can chunk it out in pieces if you would like.
When you watch the video, you'll see that we think deeply about the intentional use of technology in our classrooms. Can we always improve - yes - we absolutely can and always strive to do so, but if you have fearful visions of our elementary students sitting at their desks for hours with an iPad or other device blankly scrolling or listening, please know that is not the case in our classrooms. Technology is used for an educational purpose, or not at all.
Another video you might find helpful to get an insight into how technology is used in our schools is a video created by GHS students called: "
GHS Creates" that showcases the use of ipads at the high school. Again, just trying to give folks a sense of how our devices are used in our schools.
Ultimately, as a school system, we don't take a "one size fits all" approach with almost everything. We know that teaching (and learning) is both an "art" and a "science" and is very rarely "black and white". With that understanding, we never want to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" because we fear that if we were to simply ban technology use in schools we would also accidentally restrict powerful learning experiences where students are creating, where they are problem solving together, and thinking deeply together in ways that prepare them for their successful futures outside of the four walls of our schools.
Our schools have always been and will continue to be about RELATIONSHIPS, and I hope this post, this video, our classroom practices, and future conversations with families who wish to reach out on this important topic demonstrate that in action and not just in words. I encourage any parent to reach out to their child's teacher, their school's principal, or me to ask these important questions about the use of technology in our schools. If we can't answer the question about WHY technology is being used in our classrooms... we need to, or we agree... it shouldn't be used. I hope that in Gorham, we can shift the conversation - not about "How much screen time" but about "What's the value of that time?"
UPDATE ON DISTRICT CELL PHONE POLICY DEVELOPMENT
As a quick recap, the Gorham School Department has been developing a required cell phone policy this year in response to legislation passed in April 2025. During our work this winter, we became aware that Governor Mills’ proposed FY27 budget would likely include a statewide “bell-to-bell” cell phone ban for all public schools. Because of that possibility, we paused our original work to wait for final legislative action. Last month, the budget passed, officially including the statewide bell-to-bell requirement. Shortly after, the Maine School Management Association, Maine Department of Education, and Drummond Woodsum released a model policy to help districts meet the new legal requirements.
Recently, the district’s Policy Committee reviewed the model language and developed a first draft of a revised Gorham policy. The committee will continue refining the draft through June 5, then present it to the School Committee for a first reading on June 10. No vote will occur at that meeting. A second and final reading, along with a vote, is planned for June 24. This timeline will ensure we meet the required August 1 deadline and allow us to communicate expectations clearly to students, staff, and families well before the start of the 2026–2027 school year.
As we move forward, we are committed to a “common sense” approach to implementation. We are not planning to use systems such as Yondr pouches or other costly and time-intensive programs. Instead, we will treat cell phones similarly to other prohibited items during the school day: clearly communicate expectations, explain the educational reasons behind the policy, and enforce it in an education-first manner.
Most importantly, we will need the support of families and our broader community to make this successful, especially with middle and high school students. Conversations at home about why cell phones should not be part of the learning environment will make a tremendous difference. Like many important school expectations, this effort will only succeed if we work together as a community. Thank you in advance for your partnership and support as we continue this work.
REVISED AI STUDENT HANDBOOK BASED ON FEEDBACK & PLANNED NEXT STEPS
First of all, thank you to the 100+ families and 30+ staff who participated in the most recent feedback loop on our draft Student AI Handbook. We received some great, constructive feedback on the handbook and have made further improvements based on it. Most of the feedback was about adding clarity, details, and more specific examples for students on expectations for AI use, making clear that early grades would see only very limited and targeted use overseen directly by teachers, improving the document's organization to reduce redundancy, making it easier to navigate, and adding more details regarding the ethical use of AI, especially when not to use it.
Based on that feedback, a revised but still draft Student AI Handbook is
Linked Here.
Next steps will include:
- Sharing the draft with GHS students and meeting with them to collect feedback in a focus group style format (May 18), and making revisions based upon student feedback.
- Sharing the draft with the AI Handbook Committee at their upcoming meeting (May 26) and getting approval from the handbook committee to share the draft with the School Committee.
- Sharing the Student AI Handbook with the School Committee at their workshop meeting (May 27) for review and thorough discussion.
- Student AI Handbook approval by the School Committee at their June regular meeting (June 10).
- Formal release to students, staff, and families after that.
Please note that the process includes a required annual review of the handbook so that, as conditions change and we learn more, we can provide updated guidance to students and families.
After the student handbook is approved, we will shift our focus to creating a Staff AI handbook with similar formatting and language to ensure staff members more clearly understand how we want AI used in our classrooms. Many of the same processes and expectations outlined in the student AI handbook will be in the staff one, just geared towards a different audience. The goal will be to draft the staff handbook over the summer, seek staff feedback as we open school, and finalize it with the AI Handbook committee in the early fall. The staff handbook would then be brought to the School Committee for approval and formal sharing.
If you haven't had a chance to read through the draft Student handbook (linked above), please do. I think you will find we are taking a very thoughtful approach to AI utilization in Gorham, always maintaining our focus on RELATIONSHIPS and emphasizing the human component of learning. Feedback is always welcome, so feel free to reach out anytime at heather.perry@gorhamschools.org.
THANK YOU
PROPOSED FY 27 SCHOOL BUDGET UPDATE
On April 28, the School Committee and Town Council met for a joint budget workshop. You can
CLICK HERE to view the full meeting. We want to thank the Town Council for engaging in such a thorough discussion to best understand the proposed school budget. It was a very informative conversation.
The next step in the process will be for the Town Council to vote on the proposed FY 27 School Budget and the Municipal budget as a whole on May 12 at 6:30 p.m. These two items are taken up separately, and both will have a public hearing. The school's proposed budget is typically first on the agenda.
At this meeting, the Town Council can vote to approve the proposed budget as is or add or subtract a total dollar figure from it, but they cannot make line-item changes. Once the vote is taken, whatever budget is approved will then go to the voters for a budget validation referendum on June 9. Voting will take place at the typical polling locations in Gorham. Absentee ballots will be available as well as early voting. Please see the Gorham Town Clerk's web page for more details.
The question on the ballot will be very similar to the one below (from last year's sample ballot):
If the majority of voters vote "Yes" then the budget is approved. If the majority of voters vote "No" then the budget is not approved and we go back to the School Committee level to produce a new proposed budget which then has to be approved by Town Council and then validated by voters. The process repeats itself until a proposed budget is approved by all three decision makers (School Committee, Town Council, and voters).
We encourage Gorham voters to get involved and learn the facts about the proposed FY 27 School Budget prior to voting on June 9. For those facts you can go to our website
LINKED HERE. If you want smaller, more bite sized pieces of factual information, you can follow my
Fact Sheets that I'll be distributing 1-2 of each week between now and the validation vote. You can also attend an upcoming forum on the topic that will be held on May 11 at the North Gorham Public Library. Flyer is below with details. Finally, we encourage anyone, anytime to reach out to School Committee members or Superintendent Perry with questions.
GHS STUDENTS SELLING THEIR ART AT SULLIVAN BAKERY!
Two Gorham High School seniors, Claudette Wesse & Will Sturm, are selling their artwork at Sullivan House for the month of May as part of their Extended Learning Opportunities experiences at GHS. A HUGE Thank you to Kristen Wentworth who has graciously waived the commision fee since they are students. Check out the flyer below and if you are interested - go fast! THREE PIECES have already sold!
SIX WORD MEMOIRS FROM GHS
Students who are part of Academy M at GHS - 9th grade worked to create 6 word memoirs to share with their classmates as part of their recent vignette unit. This sounds easy - doesn't it? Well - you should view these videos and then try to fit your life into just six words and see if you can do it any better! Awesome job! Check out the link below. GO RAMS!
That's it for this blog post. My next one will be on May 22nd. Remember to stay on top of all the exciting things happening in our schools by monitoring your weekly updates from our schools and our website!
