Duke Albanese, former Maine Commissioner of Education and now with the Great Maine Schools Project at Muskie Institute, came to Islesboro Oct. 18 to talk with community members about their educational options. With costly work ahead on its current building, the Islesboro School Committee must decide whether to build a new facility or renovate. Before doing bricks-and-mortar work, the school committee determined it needed a clear vision of the kind of education it wanted to offer and established a new group charged with exploring all possible alternatives, ranging from continuing as a public school to creating a private school.
This so-called Vision Committee, consisting of a cross-section of the community including teachers, residents, parents, town officials and students invited Albanese to come to the island and describe the work of Great Maine Schools and discuss what other Maine public schools have done to reinvigorate their educational programming. This was the first in a series of forums that the committee is organizing to educate themselves and the Islesboro community, 35 members of which attended including the organizers.
Referring to the process of exploring educational models that the Vision Committee and community have begun, Mr. Albanese said, “I commend you. You are doing the right thing. You are having good conversations, getting in good facilitators. You are doing a good job.”
The Vision Committee is setting up future forums on the future of our school, all of which are open to the public. Vision Committee chair Melissa Olson said, “We gained a lot of insight about choices in public school, and we strongly encourage the public to avail themselves of the golden opportunity to learn firsthand about the possibilities out there.”
In coming weeks the Vision Committee will ask the community for input on what they want, and Olson said, “The more informed the public is the better the vision will be.” q
— Sandy Oliver