It’s hard to believe that another summer has already passed by so quickly. As with any new school year, there is a lot to share and talk about in order to ensure everyone is on the same page and the school year gets off to a strong start.
The first day back for students in grades K, 6, and 9 will be Wednesday, August 28. All other students begin on Thursday, August 29.
This year we have changed our start and end times. For Great Falls, Narragansett, and Village Elementary Schools, the times are 8:50 a.m. and 3:10 p.m.; for the Middle School it is 8:00 a.m. and 2:20 p.m.; and for the High School it is 7:50 a.m. and 2:10 p.m.
Last year’s new transportation policy will continue once again this year. This policy was revised last year and is essentially the same in that K-12 students are permitted to have up to two pick-up locations and up to two drop-off locations that follow a consistent daily schedule. More information on this policy can be found on the district website. See pages 8-9 of the full paper for the 2019-20 bus route schedules. They are also on the district website. Please call the transportation office at 893-2547 with any questions.
For parents who would like to better understand the K-12 learning system in Gorham, check out the resources that have been posted on the district website here.
As a school system, we need parents/guardians to help make school attendance a priority to help your child get better grades, develop healthy life habits, and have a better chance of graduating from high school ready to successfully meet all the challenges life may have in store for them.
See the article titled “Gorham Adopts ALICE Model as New Safety Procedure” about Gorham Schools’ new emergency response protocol ALICE, which stands for “Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate.” There will be an informational meeting to learn more about it on Tuesday, August 27, at 6 p.m. at Gorham Middle School.
The Gorham Schools will be launching its first full year of Aspire Gorham this year, which is focused on creating a community-wide, birth-to-adult, conversation about aspirations (our future stories). We have begun to create strong partnerships with our early learning community, have established goals for all our schools (K-12), and have strengthened relations with Adult Education programs and neighboring postsecondary schools (like University of Southern Maine). We have some exciting things in store for our students and families this year so stay tuned to hear more.
The Gorham Schools have been growing over the past few years. In just the past four years we have added almost 180 students to K-5 classrooms alone. As a result, we have had to add positions and fill up classroom spaces at all three K-5 Schools. We are now full and we need to figure out a way to continue to grow while keeping the best educational interests of our K-5 students in mind over both the short and long term.
As a means to this end, the Gorham School Committee has developed a long-range facility plan for K-5 that involves a “two-step” process. The first step was approved by voters in June 2019 which will result in a modular expansion at Narragansett Elementary School.
The plan is to reduce enrollments at Great Falls and Village (to give them room to grow over the next 10-15 years) while pointing as much of the “new growth” toward Narragansett School. This plan will result in the creation of three K-5 schools that will eventually have very similar enrollments and will set us up for the “second step;” a state approved capital construction project to add onto Narragansett more permanently.
In order to make this plan a reality, a component of this work will be to shift our existing attendance zones. We know no one likes to have attendance zones change. However, that doesn’t mean that we still don’t have to do it in order to ensure the best educational experiences for our children over the longer term.
As we go through this process this year in preparation for the 2020-21 school year, we will do so in a manner that keeps our focus where it should be – on our children and the positive rela- tionships we need to build with them and with you in order to make sure our schools continue to meet their needs now and well into the future.
Here’s how the timeline for this work will roughly play out:
Summer – September 2019: Administration will work to re-draw the lines for our newly proposed attendance zones. Again, the goal is to reduce enrollments at Great Falls and Village School and point growth towards Narragansett School.
October 2019: Administration will bring draft attendance zone shifts to the School Committee for approval. Once approved, the new zones will be announced to families.
October – December 2019: Administration will work to identify which staff members would be moving to which locations in the district and identify which specific families will be attending which schools for the 2020-21 school year.
December 2019: Staffing changes will be announced to families.
January – June 2020: Specific transition activities will be hosted by the school aimed at making sure students and families are familiar with new schools and new staff. Individual students may not yet be assigned to individual classrooms (which typically isn’t announced each year until June’s step-up day), but families and students will know which schools they will be attending and which teams (grade levels) of teachers they will be working with at each of those schools. The focus will be on building up those new strong relationships so that transitions will be as smooth as possible once they occur.
Again, there is just so much going on in our schools. You can find the district Facebook page here and Twitter account here, and individual school Facebook and Twitter account links can be found on the district webpage. Please call or email any questions you may have. We want to make sure you are informed as to what is going on because we know that together (parents, schools, and community) we make an awesome team focused on meeting the needs of all of our unique learners.