PORTLAND — It’s 7:20 a.m. on a humid morning in June, the view of Back Cove below still shrouded in light fog.

Peter McCormack, wearing an orange vest and camo running shoes and carrying a stop sign, directs traffic. He dashes out into North Street whenever he spots a parent-child pair ready to cross. He’s been especially vigilant since two Maine students died in bus crashes earlier this school year.

The doors of East End Community School open to students five minutes later, and the atmosphere is celebratory. It’s the school’s 20th birthday. The teachers wear matching T-shirts, and the elementary students call the school “old.”

McCormack has been at the school since its early days, but his history in Portland goes back even further. He was born and raised in the city and has given most of his adult life back to the school system that produced him.

McCormack retired during the pandemic, but it didn’t stick so he returned to East End, which is home to one of the city’s most diverse and most economically disadvantaged student bodies.

His position is culture and climate coordinator, a not-quite-teacher, not-quite-administrator role tasked with overseeing the school’s positive behavior curriculum.

The 72-year-old moves fast, sometimes on a Razor scooter but usually on foot, jumping from task to task: comforting an upset student, delivering the morning announcements, keeping order in the halls.

He greets every student by name, and knows their story: “He just came to us a few months ago.” “She didn’t speak a word of English when she started here in Kindergarten.” 

Students at East End aren’t “sent to the office” in the classic sense. (There isn’t even an office to go to, since Principal Boyd Marley doesn’t have one.) Instead, they come to McCormack’s reset room to calm down, regulate and prepare to go back to class as soon as possible.

He’s a big believer in creating the right conditions to help students arrive to class prepared to learn.

CHOOSE KINDNESS

After reading the morning announcements, McCormack prepares for “Sambusa Friday,” his weekly tradition of bringing in the savory Somali pastries, divvying up the hot triangular snacks into paper bags for his colleagues.

Around 8:15, McCormack drops in on some morning meetings. In one classroom, Megan Bergman leads a circle of third graders through an activity rooted in McCormack’s social-emotional curriculum, where each student picks a “purposeful people characteristic” and talks about how they’ve successfully embodied it.

“I’ve been good with courage this year, because last year, I just wanted friends, and I let people get away with things that I didn’t feel comfortable with,” a girl shares. “But this year, I feel like I’ve been telling them, ‘No, I don’t want to do that.'”

“I think I persevered this year because at the beginning of this year, I had some issues, and now I’m starting to control them,” a boy says.

“I totally agree,” Bergman responds, before giving him an air high-five across the circle. McCormack tells the class how proud he is of their responses. 

McCormack was East End’s first assistant principal, back in 2010 (the school had a teacher leader structure for its first few years.) He decided to go into teaching during his sophomore year at Deering High School, taught special education at Portland High School for more than a decade in the 80s and 90s, then worked at the now-defunct West School, a day treatment program for students with disabilities and behavioral issues, for which he was trained in therapeutic crisis intervention.

After a few years at East End, he left to be the assistant principal at a different elementary school in the district for a while, retired during the pandemic with 289 left-over sick days, then got “bored stiff.” He signed up to sub at East End and within an hour was back at the school.

McCormack has words of praise for every colleague he meets or mentions. He describes East End School as a special place.

It was founded in 2006 to replace the Jack School, an old elementary school at the top of Munjoy Hill that closed in 2001 because of toxic mold contamination. At the time, it was the district’s first new school in nearly 30 years. 

Because of its location near Kennedy Park and a number of other family public housing communities in East Bayside, the school serves a population unlike many others in the district and state. More than half of its students are multilingual, nearly three quarters are students of color, and 80% are economically disadvantaged.

East End operates as a community school: a wing of the building is used by local sports clubs, organizations and churches, and the school hosts free community dinners once a month. It’s also home to the clothing closet, a thrift store where students and families can grab shirts, coats and winter gear for free.

“This building is used seven days a week,” McCormack says.

‘IT’S SO DIFFERENT’

Mid-morning, McCormack guides groups of students to the library to fill a freezer bag with books they can take to read over the summer. Literacy is one of the school’s big areas of focus, and teaching strategist Emily Herlihy says East End improved its reading scores 12% since last year on the state’s standardized test. Staff hopes to keep that momentum by sending home books.

Nobody has seen the school’s evolution more than Carla Reyes. She was a third grader during East End’s inaugural year, graduated from Portland schools, and became a teacher herself. At 21, she returned, first as a Kindergarten teacher, then fifth grade, and now as a multilingual specialist.

“It’s so different. We have a lot more diversity in students, we also have a lot more diversity in staff,” Reyes, now 28, said. “Growing up, you never really saw teachers of color, and now, being one, it’s really nice to connect with students in that way.”

Most of the students she works with speak Portuguese, Somali, Arabic, Spanish and French. Many of the ed techs here come from the same immigrant communities the school serves, and several of the teachers are former ed techs who recently received college degrees and now have their own classrooms.

On this day, the school celebrates long-time paraeducator Ana Mutula, known affectionately as Miss Ana, who just received her bachelor’s degree.

After lunch, McCormack spends some time providing one-on-one support for a pre-K student. But he’s back at the end of the day to oversee Way to Shine! recess, a Friday treat where two students from each classroom who have been respectful, kind and responsible get to play outside. Over the course of the school year, every student gets the chance to celebrate at least a few times. 

HEADING HOME

During recess, McCormack is briefly called away to assist with a “child in distress.” He gets texts constantly throughout the day, from teachers and administrators, calling his attention to outbursts or incidents.

A quarter of students here have Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, and working with them in moments of heightened emotion or stress is his bread and butter.

After things are sorted with the student, he returns to the jump roping and swinging outside. The sky has cleared, it’s hot, and students have now received their own T-shirts celebrating the school’s birthday.

“Are you coming to the party? Are you bringing your grammy?” McCormack asks a boy. “I had his grammy as a student back at Portland High School.”

McCormack is re-retiring this year. But he’s already signed up as an administrative sub. 

By the time students are dismissed at 1:50 p.m., the sun is blazing on Munjoy Hill, but there’s still a haze over the city below.

McCormack escorts a few individual students out to the bus, then boards the yellow 110, like he does every day. He’s there to help with behavioral outbursts or dropped items, to help the driver keep his eyes on the road and not get distracted by the chaos in the back.

Later, the students will return for the birthday party in the field beside the school, with balloon animals, watermelon slices and popsicles, joined by players from the Hearts of Pine soccer team, and music from the team’s fan-run Valentine Band.

But for now, McCormack gets on the bus. He chats with the driver. He taught his kids, too.