Superintendent's Update: March 22 Post

Spring has sprung, but it seems winter has not yet had its last say! Hopefully this weekend's precipitation is just wet and not white - unless of course you are a skier and then I am sure you are hoping for the opposite!

Its been a busy few weeks in the Gorham Schools! Check out the pictures below to get a snapshot of some of the cool stuff happening!

Now on to the information!

SCHOOL CALENDAR CHANGE REMINDER!

Just wanted to make sure everyone got the information regarding the upcoming calendar change that we are making due to the Solar Eclipse. WE HAVE MOVED OUR ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED APRIL 3 EARLY RELEASE DAY TO MONDAY, APRIL 8. Monday, April 8 will now be an early release day for students while April 3rd will now be moved to a full student day.

We are making this shift for safety reasons associated with the April 8 eclipse which will be occurring at 3:28 p.m. This time is smack dab in the middle of our elementary school bus runs home and we thought it best to perhaps not tempt fate to have our buses on the roads with our most precious cargo at a time when 97% of folks may be entirely distracted by the eclipse!

If you have questions, please reach out to your school's office. Otherwise, in the spirit of the eclipse, I thought I'd share some resources for families and perhaps child care providers for how to safely enjoy the eclipse and all the educational opportunities that go along with it! Some quick resources are below!

*. Maine Department of Education Eclipse Resource Page.

* National Science Foundation Total Solar Eclipse 2024 Website

*. National Environmental Education Eclipse Resource page (scroll a little to the bottom for some great activities)

*. New Hampshire PBS Resources

*. Resources from NASA

RECENT EAT AND LEARN EVENT - THANK YOU!

Just wanted to send a quick THANK YOU out to the 60+ people who showed up at our second annual Anti-Racism & Equity Committee "Eat and Learn" event held on March 12!

This year we asked students to participate by creating original artwork around the theme of advocacy. Students were asked to think about a time when they either helped to advocate for someone or something or a time when others needed advocacy and/or support, or a time they had perhaps witnessed advocacy in action and what that meant to them. Students could draw, paint, create banners, poems, videos, or any of the myriad of artistic forms that are out there to express their views on the importance of advocacy.

We had 30+ students involved and they most certainly did all that! We displayed their artistic creations at the Eat and Learn event at the GHS library and then allowed others to walk through to view the art and even talk with the artists themselves about the importance of advocacy. We had pizza, chips, and drinks available and it was an absolute joy to see so many so deeply engaged in these important conversations with one another.

Then about half way through the event our facilitator, Mr. Ward, encouraged everyone to participate - not just the artists who had pre-submitted work! On tables set up in the back participants could draw pictures, create word walls, or cut out pictures for a collage on the same topic of advocacy. I didn't realize there was so much creativity in the room (not including mine of course) and the results were incredible!

Thank you to members of the community engagement equity group (a subgroup of the anti-racism and equity committee) for putting these great ideas together, communicating and organizing and just making sure a wonderful night was had by all in attendance! It was a true reflection of our great community here in Gorham! Proud to be a Ram!

NEED YOUR HELP/FEEDBACK - ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT HIRING PROCESS!

Earlier this winter Dr. Brian Porter, our current Assistant Superintendent of Schools, announced his retirement at the conclusion of this school year after 25+ years of service to our district. It will certainly be no easy task to replace him, but we must endeavor to do that very thing.

That being said, we are just now wrapping up our first round of applicant interviews and will be preparing for a 2nd round of interviews with between 2-3 finalists for the position. This is where WE NEED YOUR HELP AND FEEDBACK! On the evening of April 3 between 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Gorham Middle School, we will be conducting a stakeholder interview process. During this process, we are inviting members of our staff, parents/guardians, and community members to participate in the selection process.

The evening will include breaking stakeholder participants up into two groups and asking each candidate to present to each group on a topic of our creating. The candidate will conduct their presentation for roughly 20 minutes and then the rest of the time (20-30 minutes) may be used for open Q&A from stakeholder participants. At the end of the event, stakeholder participants will be asked to complete a brief ratings form for each candidate. Data from this form will then be reviewed by the hiring committee to help make final recommendations.

If you are interested in participating in this process - PLEASE COMPLETE THE FORM BELOW so I know roughly how many to plan on!

Stakeholder Participation Interest Form Link: https://forms.gle/DxXYLDha2Z5HSAGc9

THANK YOU!

MIYHS DATA IS RELEASED - WORTH A LOOK!

The Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey (MIYHS) is a biennial survey of Maine students in grades 5 through 12 that monitors health behaviors and attitudes regarding tobacco, alcohol, substance use, mental health, nutrition, physical activity, and protective factors. The MIYHS was first administered in 2009 and is offered in February of every odd-numbered year. The MIYHS is conducted by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services in collaboration with the Maine Department of Education.

Publicly available data reports for the state, geographic public health districts, and counties are available for each survey cycle since 2009 on the public results page LINKED HERE. All other data by individual schools is protected due to confidentiality rules. The Gorham Schools, however, works with Cumberland County Public Health to put together a summary of information that can be shared publicly.

On March 13, 2024 Brooke Proulx, GMS Social Worker presented this summary information to the Gorham School Committee. It is most definitely worth the watch! You can view the presentation by CLICKING HERE and going to the minute 47 mark!

You can also review the slide presentation provided by CLICKING HERE.

And just to "wet your whistle" a little bit...I thought I'd share a few screen shots of the data that jumped at me...

You want to see more? And there is A LOT more to see...you will need to click on the links above! ☺

SCHOOL COMMITTEE BUDGET WORKSHOP MEETINGS UPDATE

The Gorham School Committee has met TWICE since my last blog post. They met on March 11 and again on March 18. Below you can click on links to the meeting agenda and recordings for both meetings:

*. March 11 Meeting Agenda with Links

*. March 11 Meeting Recording

*. March 18 Meeting Agenda with Links

*. March 18 Meeting Recording.

You can also go to our website LINKED HERE to view all of these materials and more to get you up to date on all the discussions thus far!

At this time, our proposed FY 25 budget would be an operating expenditure increase of 6.99%, and would have an impact on the mil rate of +$1.02. Please keep in mind, however that the School Committee has not yet begun its discussions regarding revenue streams. The work that you see thus far has all been focused on expenditures and trying to make sure we are as tight in expenditures as we can be while still maintaining needed programming for students.

The focus of March 25's meeting will be on the revenue side of the equation and further adjustments will continue to be made at that time.

With an eye towards expenditures - I thought I'd share a particularly telling graph below with all of you as I think this one graph helps to tell the tale of one of our biggest cost drivers over the past 3-4 years - special services.

Basically, what the table and graph above shows us is that our special education numbers and costs continue to grow at a rate that is out-pacing our general enrollment growth, and our general fund budget growth over time.

Find out more about this data by watching the meeting videos! Next budget workshop meeting will be on Monday, March 25, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in the upstairs conference room. The public is welcome to attend, or you can wait for the video link!

ASPIRE GORHAM PRESENTATION TO GORHAM SCHOOL COMMITTEE!

Eliza Kenigsburg, Aspirations Coordinator for the Gorham School Department, Grace Olsen, Extended Learning Opportunities (ELO) Instructor for Gorham High School, along with Tracie Travers from JMG and Kenn Tompkins, Aspire Communications Coordinator PLUS TWO GHS STUDENTS provided a very informative update to the School Committee on the work of Aspire Gorham over the past several years as well as some really great information about the impact of the program across our district.

Please CLICK HERE and go to the 3 min. 54 second mark of the video to watch! I think you will be as impressed as I was at how articulate our students were, especially in sharing their "stories" with the School Committee about the importance and effectiveness of the program.

Want to know more about Aspire Gorham? CLICK HERE for an overview. Want to learn more about our ELO program? CLICK HERE for an overview of that too!

Finally, want to see what has been most recently happening within our Aspire Gorham program? Check out the most recent newsletter!

CURRICULUM INFORMATION - HOW DO I FIND IT?

The Gorham Schools has done considerable work over the past year or more in trying to make our curriculum as transparent as possible for students and families, but sometimes I know it may be hard to find when you are looking for it.

There are a few places you can go to find this important information so I thought I'd take a moment to consolidate it all in one place for families who may be interested in learning more.

First, if you go to our website and click on "About US" you can then click on "Gorham's Learning System". When you get there you will find yourself in a place with almost too much information about our learning systems here in Gorham! The right hand tool bar will help you to navigate! It looks like this:

You can read first about our Commitment to Equity and Inclusion. Then you can click on a link to check out an overview of our curriculum that includes a link to our Teaching & Learning Handbook and a direct link to all of our Graduation Standards and performance indicators. These standards outline the skills we want students to focus on attaining at each grade level and in each content area.

Next you can click on Gorham's Learning Systems Parent Resources. This is a great page that has a more detailed overview of what your child will be learning across each grade level and content area. This page also has a link to our Grading Guide. At the high school levels you can also click on specific course syllabi for each course offered at GHS.

Next you can click on some assessment data information, an overview of common core state standards and an overview of Maine's curriculum standards and performance indicators fore each area. These are the documents that our specific graduation standards and performance indicators align to to make sure we are meeting all requirements of state law.

Finally, you can click on a link to check out the State of the School's Report for each year since 2020 and learn more about our "Metrics for Success" tool.

I'd like to mention one more page as well that was created this year for our NEASC accreditation visit at Gorham High School. For this one, you need to go to the district website, click on "Gorham High School" and then click on "Academics" and then "Course Curriculum". This link goes even more deeply into the course curriculum for each course offered at GHS above and beyond the syllabi I mentioned earlier.

There is NO QUESTION there is A LOT of information contained on these website links. It is all there, but it can be overwhelming at times to navigate. As a parent/guardian or community member - after surfing around for a while - I'd encourage you to reach out directly to either your building principal or myself to ask further follow up questions. These are materials that our teachers "live and breathe" every day...so we would love to engage in further conversation with families that may have questions!

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR SPRING ATHLETIC PROGRAMS AT GHS!