WINDHAM – In recent years, the turnover of superintendents in school districts across the state has been rapid fire. But one local superintendent is an anomaly, content to stay where he is. In a state where the average tenure for a superintendent is 5.7 years, according to the Maine School Management Association, Sandy Prince is entering his 10th year in charge of the Windham-Raymond district.
WINDHAM – In recent years, the turnover of superintendents in school districts across the state has been rapid fire.
Some superintendents move on due to missteps on the local scene that irritate parents or teachers. Others leave because they can demand top dollar in a highly specialized field that requires a variety of skills and professional qualifications. Locally, just last year, Patrick Phillips left the top job at Lake Region School District and Suzanne Lukas left School Administrative District 6.
But one local superintendent is an anomaly, content to stay where he is. In a state where the average tenure for a superintendent is 5.7 years, according to the Maine School Management Association, Sandy Prince is entering his 10th year in charge of the Windham-Raymond district.
Prince oversees a district comprising 3,367 students as of last year, making it the eighth largest in the state. He will earn $130,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which ranks him near the top for state school administrators, close to Scarborough ($132,000) and Falmouth ($130,000) but more than Gorham ($125,000) and Gray-New Gloucester ($122,449), though experience plays some role in the differences.
In his decade on the top job in Windham, Prince has faced his share of tough situations. Following the passage of the state school consolidation law, Windham discussed merging with Westbrook and Raymond for a time before Westbrook dropped out. During and after the consolidation talks with Raymond, some residents felt Raymond was getting less than their fair share out of the deal. Those feelings surfaced again last year when a proposal was made that would have closed a Raymond school.
In addition, Prince has been at the head of the district during a time of increasingly tough budgetary considerations. In the last few years, around 60 positions have been cut to ward off tax increases.
Being the public face of a school district during times of change and budget disruption is not a recipe for long-term success. But those who work with Prince, and Prince himself, say his longevity is grounded in his true enjoyment of the work, his ethical handling of difficult situations and his passion for student-focused education.
“He is all about student achievement, and that’s the bottom line for him,” said veteran school board member Kate Brix of Windham, who was on the search committee that chose Prince to replace Susan Gendron in 2003.
“He is a very ethical person,” Brix said. “And I saw that first hand when I was board chair and through some other very unfortunate experiences that the district has gone through in the past. He is very ethical and very fair, and you don’t see that very often. When I hear about other superintendents and what they’re doing, I go, ‘Really?’ I’m left scratching my head. Not so with Sandy.”
Another longtime board member from Windham, Mike Duffy, who also sat on the superintendent search committee, had similar praise for Prince.
“Sandy has always been very upfront and honest,” Duffy said. “If he doesn’t think it works, he’ll tell you why he doesn’t think it will work. He’s not afraid to voice his opinion.”
Duffy likes Prince’s leadership style, saying he doesn’t seek the limelight.
“He’s a very quiet leader,” he said. “He leads by example. He tries to get consensus of the stakeholders. But he’s not afraid to pull the plug knowing he’s the last line and the decision is finally his.”
The other long-serving Windham board member, Toby Pennels, is likewise comfortable with how Prince goes about his business.
“He is so even-keeled, so oriented toward bettering our system and so tolerant of some of the frustration that happens with the political process so in my opinion he’s been a gem for the community, and the community may not know that. But we’re lucky to have him,” Pennels said.
Jeri Keane-Dreyer, a longtime board member from Raymond, has worked with Prince since Windham and Raymond consolidated in 2008, and has a similar impression.
“Sandy is a quiet leader,” she said. “He’s not ever going to be ostentatious or way out there waving his hands all the time, and I appreciate that about him. I know he’s doing the job.”
Keane-Dreyer adds that Prince is “totally committed to a high-quality education for all of our students. He’s also very supportive of teachers and staff and really having a wonderful climate to work in.”
Terry Taiani, president of the Sebago East Shore Educators Association, which represents all the teachers in Windham and Raymond, confirms the board’s impressions. She said Prince helped during the consolidation getting teachers from both districts on the same page.
“He was really great about making sure we had Raymond representation so we could start to work together as that bigger district with developing our goals moving forward,” she said.
Though consolidation is in the past, a few issues remain, such as school capacity. Earlier this year, Taiani said, Prince reached out to all teachers in the district, holding meetings in each of the schools, to figure out a solution to the ongoing facilities demands Windham faces. With Raymond’s two schools at half-capacity and several Windham schools overcrowded, the issue has become a sticky one and is far from resolved. But through it, Taiani said, Prince has sought ideas from all sectors.
“Sandy made sure we had those facilities meetings in each of the buildings so he could get input from as much of the staff as possible before moving ahead with the next steps,” Taiani said.
“So, my experience with him has been very positive. He’s comfortable,” she said. “I’m not a terribly confrontational person so thank goodness he’s just a very comfortable, down-to-earth person to work for. I don’t feel, if I did have an issue, that I couldn’t go and talk with him.”
Like the school board members, the No. 1 issue for Taiani, who is a Jordan-Small Middle School teacher, is Prince’s devotion to student achievement.
“In any committees that I’ve sat in with him or any times that I’ve had an exchange with him, my gut tells me what he does and what he says and the direction we go really does have to do with what’s best for the kids,” Taiani said. “And that’s just an important thing. I mean, I’ve been teaching for 36 years now and I’ve had a lot of different administrators and that’s always got to be, in my opinion, what’s in the forefront. And I do feel that from him.”
‘It’s about we, not I’
Prince was hired in Windham during the high school renovation project, which began in 2003. It wasn’t his first time in Windham, however. He was hired in 1981 as a kindergarten special education teacher. Before he came back to the district as superintendent, Prince spent about 20 years as a teacher and school principal in several others systems, including Gorham and Portland.
“I never stayed in a job more than four years before this position,” Prince said. “I was in Gorham for 16 years but not in the same position. It was just the nature of what happened. But it’s been great here. I really love the work. It’s really challenging work. It’s challenged my skills at times, but it’s made me much more resilient because you do get hit with a lot.”
Prince said he aims to get people on board with a vision before plowing ahead toward a goal.
“It’s about we, and not I,” he said. “You try to develop a culture where it’s about us, and we’re moving this vision forward, versus a hierarchy where you do this because I told you so.
“It’s about, this is our purpose. This is what we’re going to stand for. And we’re going to do this together. And we’re going to believe in each other, and support each other. And we’re going to provide the resources to make this work happen.”
Prince’s experience in Windham has shaped his style, he said.
“That has really resonated with me over the years. I could have come in here and said, ‘OK, this is what we’re going to.’ But you’re not going to have anybody follow you as a leader,” Prince said. “People are going to start going different directions. Again, I’m not saying it’s a perfect system, but in general if you build with people, and say ‘it’s about us and we, we’re in this together,’ it really pays off.”
The last 10 years have been challenging, with national and state politicians tweaking the system every few years in an attempt to improve teacher accountability and student test scores. Technology has created tension, as well, with budgets increasing as schools are expected to keep their students connected. Through it all, Prince has tried to keep the student in mind.
“Really, it’s pretty intense work, just the complexity of the work,” he said. “First of all, you’re doing incredibly important work because it’s about kids. We’re not just building widgets here. We’re dealing with students, and it’s incredibly important they succeed and do well. Secondly, you’ve got over 700 employees. We’ve probably got the biggest food service business in Windham or Raymond. We have a huge amount of real estate we have to take care of. Sometimes people don’t think of all the moving parts within the organization. And there’s a political piece to any school system.”
But Prince, who’s accustomed to challenges, including physical ones such as skiing down the fabled Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington, is happy at Windham-Raymond, and credits his longevity to a passion for trying to get students to love learning. A strong moral compass hasn’t hurt either, he says, especially when many decisions are of the “gray” kind.
“When things hit this level that aren’t fun things, it can hit hard. It could be a lawsuit, a [human resources] issue,” he said. “Sometimes as superintendent you get paid for making decisions when those decisions are in the gray area.
“So when they hit you, nobody’s made that decision before and that’s why it’s at my level. And sometimes, when those decisions are gray, you can go one way, or you could go the other. So you do the best you can.”
Prince will be the first to say that he makes mistakes, that he’s “no saint” and that he can’t do it alone.
“I think we have an unbelievable team, kindergarten through adult [education]. We have really great, phenomenal people in this district who are really dedicated to the vision of this work, who we are as an organization and where we want to take this organization,” he said.
And while some superintendents jump from job to job, looking for ever-increasing paychecks or to flee their mistakes, Prince is excited about staying in the district.
“Ten years later, I’d say I’m even more excited than when I started. It gets better every year,” he said. “And you get even more energized because of the work that you’ve been immersed in for a number of years.
“It just builds this momentum to keep at it and get better because you’re really a part of the work. It’s not being here a year or two and moving on, I’m going into my 10th year of the work that we started, and that’s energizing.”
Comments are no longer available on this story