A retired superintendent who served as top administrator for School Administrative District 75 for 19 years has now been nominated to the Maine Charter School Commission.
The Maine School Management Association said Michael Wilhelm — who retired from SAD 75 in 2011 — is among two nominees tapped for open slots on the commission, announced last week.
They would be filling seats left vacant by the resignations of Superintendent William Shuttleworth and Richard Barnes, retired dean of the College of Education at the University of Southern Maine.
The Maine Charter Commission held an informational meeting last week “for groups hoping to open charter schools in Maine next year, fielding questions from Maine Virtual Academy, a couple hoping to open a Montessori school and a Massachusetts group that last year applied to start a school of science in Bangor, but now has its eyes on Lewiston,” states the Maine School Management Association in a release last week. “Two of the applicants attending the informational session — Maine Virtual Academy and Pioneer Charter of Massachusetts — applied last year and were turned down by the commission.”
Letters of intent for groups looking to open schools in 2014-15 are due to the commission Sept. 3, and full applications are due Dec. 2.
The Maine Charter Commission has already approved five of the 10 schools it was authorized to approve over a 10-year period starting in 2011. Three of those are to open next month, including Baxter Academy of Technology and Science in Portland, Harpswell Coastal Academy and Fiddlehead School of Arts and Sciences in Gray. Good Will-Hinckley’s Maine Academy of Natural Sciences and the Cornville Regional Charter School opened last year.
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