By Amanda Estes
Staff Writer
    Tuesday marked the end of summer vacation and the start of a new school year for students in South Portland and Cape Elizabeth.
    School administrators across Maine spent the summer exploring their options in regards to the governor’s school administrative reorganization law and drafting letters of intent to be submitted to the department of education. South Portland and Cape Elizabeth both announced their intentions to remain independent despite earlier discussions about consolidating the two districts. South Portland qualified for an exemption because it’s student population exceeds 2,500. Cape Elizabeth also qualified for an exemption under the law’s “high performing, highly efficient” clause.
    While the two districts still need to develop alternative plans for cost savings, last week, the more pressing matter was welcoming students to the start of a new school year.
    South Portland High School was preparing to welcome a student body of nearly 1,000 students including three foreign exchange students from Costa Rica, Taiwan and Sweden.
    Principal Jeanne Crocker said she is also looking forward to the opportunity for residents to participate in a series of building tours.  
    “We will help them to understand the needs of the different parts of the building because it does vary depending on the age of the building,” Crocker said.
    Tours have been scheduled for: Sept. 24 at 6:30, Sept. 30 at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m., Oct. 6 at 4 p.m., Oct. 21 at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and Nov. 3 at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., and 5 p.m.
    According to the Secondary Schools Facilities Committee, part of the building dates back to 1952 and it has been some time since the building met codes. The renovations will also provide more space for educational programs. On May 21, the city council voted to include a referendum on a $56 million bond to fund the project on November’s ballot.
    Crocker said staff will also be busy preparing for next year’s visit from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), the regional accrediting association. Crocker said every 10 years, high schools throughout the country spend about two years conducting an “exhaustive self review.”
    “We are going to be working very hard and completing our self evaluation in preparation for that visit,” Crocker said.
    At Cape Elizabeth High School, Principal Jeffrey Shedd said the 600 incoming students could expect to spend more time in science class and gain more hands on experience by participating in more lab work. The goal of increasing lab time by 17 percent, Shedd said, is to not only provide a strong foundation for future scientists, but to also strengthen students’ analytical skills.   
    Shedd also said the school has a “new system in place for monitoring and hopefully catching more quickly kids that may be struggling and help them perform better.”
    “That’s really in response to a legal initiative at the national and state level–it’s called Response to Intervention,” he said.
    The objective of the program, Shedd said, is to encourage schools to provide additional help for students who may be falling behind their peers before referring the student to a special education program. Shedd said the program advocates that schools start thinking of special education as a last resort rather than the only option.
    The High School Achievement Center is a place where students can currently go to receive extra help with their academic work. For the past three years, the Cape Elizabeth Education Foundation has funded the center, however, Shedd said part of next year’s budget discussions will be looking at ways to fund the program.  
    Shedd said the program is an asset to the school, as it doesn’t take away from teachers’ instructional time.
    “That’s a place where students can go during their study hall period and either get a conference about their writing with a trained staff member, get training on computers on PLATO (instructional) software, or get one on one tutoring with peers or staff,” Shedd said.
    Steve Connolly, principal of Cape Elizabeth Middle School, said staff is working to build capacity in the school’s curriculum, particularly for science and language arts, and create consistent curriculum language from one grade to the next.
    “It’s timely for us–while we do well in reading, our writing scores are not where we like to see them,” he said. “We feel if you’re not improving, you’re losing ground.”
    In terms of science, Connolly said students tend to do very well in biological science, but are not as strong in physical sciences. He said the school will be conducting collegial visits to other schools such as Yarmouth, Falmouth, Greely and Bangor to see how they go about constructing cohesive curriculum plans for those areas.
    Connolly said the school is also continuing to develop technological tools such as laptops for seventh and eighth graders, interactive SMART boards and the PowerGrade program, now in its second year. PowerGrade provides electronic access to teachers’ grade books.
    Cape Elizabeth Middle School is also implementing Response to Intervention, Connolly said.
    “With all of our students, we’re trying to figure out how do you raise the floor?” Using Maine Educational Assessment or MEA standards, Connolly said the school will aim to raise students up to the next level, whether they fail to meet standards, partially meet standards or meet standards.
    The roughly 557 incoming students will also have an opportunity to participate in community team days, a program in which students will work in small groups with an advisor on one or two activities per trimester. Connolly said the goal is to have students work with the same group and advisor throughout their four years at the school.
    “This year we’re working toward building a collaborative sense of the school,” he said. “We’re going to work toward developing team identities with these groups and we’re going to work toward fun activities to get these teams going.” He said one activity will likely be a field day in the spring.
    Margaret Hawkins, principal of South Portland’s Brown Elementary School spent Tuesday morning outside on the playground welcoming students and their parents. Although the school’s enrollment is around 260 students, which Hawkins said is typical from year to year, the school has added an extra fifth grade and an extra second grade class. To accommodate the change, Hawkins said staff transformed the teacher’s room into a classroom.
    “At this point our numbers are such that no teacher has more than 18 students,” she said. “It’s a great way to start.”
    Brown’s English as Second Language (ESL) program continues to grow since its beginnings at the school three years ago, Hawkins said. Currently the program serves 50 students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
    Superintendent Suzanne Godin has said part of next year’s budget discussions will include redistricting the city’s four elementary schools to alleviate overcrowding in some and underutilization in others. One aspect of the proposed redistricting plans will likely be educating ESL students in their home schools rather than at Brown. Godin said the district’s philosophy is that students are best educated in their home schools.     
    Although South Portland’s new class of kindergarteners will not start school until September 10, Hawkins said she doesn’t anticipate a lot of anxiety from students or their parents.
    “We don’t see a lot of anxiety because more and more students do have some sort of preschool experience so they’re used to saying goodbye to their parents and know they’ll see them at the end of the day,” she said.