Director's Corner  
       
 

Welcome back to the twenty-second year of school-university collaboration through the Southern Maine Partnership, which provides a protected space for educators across grade levels and disciplines to engage in conversation, reflection, problem solving, and action. As consolidation takes center stage, issues of teaching and learning could easily take a back seat to procedural and organizational concerns. For that reason, I think it is more important than ever for teachers and administrators to have a place where they can come together as school and university colleagues, set their own agendas, and talk about what is most important to them as educators. I hope you will take full advantage of what the Partnership and USM can offer in the year to come.

Highlights for the coming year include:

  • Cindy O’Shea will join the Partnership as a contracted consultant and will work closely with me to plan activities that focus on elementary schools and literacy education. Jeff Beaudry will be coordinating our efforts in research, assessment, and evaluation

  • Faculty from the USM College of Education and Human Development, Arts and Sciences, Allied Science and Technology, and the Muskie School of Public Policy will become more closely affiliated with SMP work and districts.

  • Superintendent conversations about consolidation and seminars on mediation and organizational concerns will be convened, some with the support of Muskie faculty.

  • The Curriculum Coordinator Think Tank will continue to meet monthly.

  • Principal Groups will meet to discuss emerging concerns with regard to consolidation and with an eye to keeping learning at the forefront

  • Topical symposia, dine and discuss evenings, ongoing groups will be ongoing.

  • Site based presentations and consultations will be scheduled as requested.

  • “College Readiness” conversations between school and university faculty will continue and expand.

  • A revised, content- rich and user–friendly web-site will be in place.

  • I will direct a new USM masters degree program (The Professional Educator) that is especially designed for member districts. Beginning to recruit in the fall, it will provide the opportunity for teachers from existing and consolidating districts to come together to forge vital cultures of learning and teaching in a degree earning cohort.

  • I will also be coordinating a fifth cohort of Leadership for Tomorrow’s Schools, a leadership program leading to a masters degree or CAS that will be open to all member districts.

  • Collaboration with MLTI to bring laptops to the high schools

As some of you know, those Partnership staff under contract with the Great Maine Schools Project and supported by other external funding sources have joined a new organization that will be housed within the Senator George Mitchell Institute and will be co-directed by David Ruff and Duke Albanese. The group, known as the Great Schools Partnership (GSP), will have no official ties to the University of Southern Maine or to the Southern Maine Partnership and will provide contracted and grant supported services to schools both within and beyond the region. I extend my very best wishes for success to all of those involved in this new venture..

I look forward to working with you in the coming year. Please feel free to contact me lynnem@usm.maine.edu with any concerns, questions, or requests.

Sincerely,

Lynne Miller, Professor of Educational Leadership and Director of the Southern Maine Partnership