Internal internships doing well

The second meeting in April was held at Saint Albans City School (SACS).

SACS Internships
As the host of our meeting, several SACS students and their teachers were there to tell us about their internal internship program.  They currently have nearly 100 students doing internships in various areas within the school.

The first student, Colby, has an internship helping out in a Pre-K classroom. As a result of his work there, he now wants to go to college and study to be a Pre-K teacher.  “We don’t have many male teachers in the younger grades”, he said.

The second student, Finn, is a facilitator in the Makerspace. And, by the way, he’s in the second grade. Finn spoke very well about his duties. He ended by saying “I like being an intern in the Makerspace because I feel different.  I’m not just a normal student, I get to go somewhere else and do something else.”

Finally, Jack and Megan have internships with the HOPE team, an in-school business which produces many different products for sale. They gave a demo of the CNC router that the school has. CNC machines, by the way, take an electronic design and control a tool (in this case a router) to make the design. The students are teaming up with Jeff’s Seafood to make and sell wooden cheese boards.  While doing these projects, they learn practical examples of math, science, and business.

I know I say it all the time, but the presentation skills of our Maple Run students are incredible.  They are very poised, confident, and knowledgeable.  You can also see that they are excited about their internships. I’ve seen this before.  You get students excited about being in school every day, and it helps them out in all areas.

Snack Bar - Saint Albans Football Association
There have been plans for years to replace the snack bar located at the Football/Soccer field at Collins Perley.  Tim Smith from the Saint Albans Football Association gave us an update on the project.

They have finalized the design, which will include space for the current snack bar and new bathrooms.  This has been sorely needed, as the only bathrooms currently available are inside the Complex.  Also, this building is close to the walking path (which is well used), so the intent is to make a bathroom available for community use even when games are not going on.

It is estimated that the new building will cost $250,000. They have already received $45,000 in donations of materials/labor and are working on more. They asked us if we could contribute up to $90,000, and they would supply the remainder. Tim expects that in the end, we won’t even have to pay that much.

The Board agreed.  This is a needed project and will be a community asset.

New Assistant Superintendent
The Board got to meet Bill Kimball, our new Assistant Superintendent, who will be starting on July 1 (in case you were wondering, our contracts run from July 1 - June 30.  That’s our fiscal year too). He was visiting for the day, touring all of the Maple Run schools.

Bill is a former Principal, Curriculum Director, and is currently the Superintendent of the Washington Central Supervisory Union. Like all of Maple Run, Bill is student focused.

The job of Assistant Superintendent is something new for our District.  Because we have three administrators retiring or leaving this year, the Administrative Team took it as an opportunity to improve our administrative structure.  They looked at how people’s jobs have changed over the years, and decided that we could do things better by redefining positions and their responsibilities.  As an example, we won’t have an HR Director anymore - that will be part of the Assistant Superintendent’s work.

In the future, I hope to write about the various positions on the Maple Run Administrative Team and what responsibilities they have.

I’m excited about the changes moving forward, and confident that Bill will be a welcome addition.

Can’t subscribe?  Send me an email.
Do you like this blog but have had trouble subscribing?  Just send me a note at  jmorrill@maplerun.org and I will email you a copy of the blog entries when I make them.

Got ideas for subjects you would like me to cover?  Again, send me a note!