Newburyport School Notes
Lynne Hendricks
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When Superintendent Marc Kerble was engaged in guiding the Winchester school system as its assistant superintendent, he depended heavily on the principles of building a strong leadership team to achieve strong educational policy and practice that trickled from the top on down. As the new leader of the Newburyport district, Kerble is implementing a similar leadership strategy, and he hopes it will encourage the same positive results the program created in his former district.
It began prior to the beginning of this school year, with a two-day leadership retreat at Plum Island's PITA Hall, he said.
"We had a leadership retreat for our elementary principals, middle school and high school principals, our central office staff, and our teachers and leaders, including department heads and others in leadership roles," Kerble said. "There were 34 of us, and we met for two days at PITA Hall with the purpose of getting on the same page as leaders to talk about leadership excellence."
Discussion was centered on various characteristics and behaviors associated with strong leadership, and how to identify leadership qualities, behaviors and styles to benefit the student population. Kerble said the idea of the retreat was to help leadership work together to understand the climate and culture of the school, and to come up with general actions that would take schools from either "good to great" or from "great to greater."
"We are a leadership team of 34 people and really excited at the outcome and what we achieved," Kerble said. "And I'm very impressed with all our leaders and how hard they work and how committed they are to making Newburyport the best it can be."
Kerble said school leaders seemed to take very well to the methods he's encouraging.
"The response has been great," he said. "This is the first time we've had teachers and administrators working together in a leadership retreat. These two days were profound. We're trying to build a great system that starts with working together as a team."
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The Newburyport Elementary School PTO will be organizing its annual Meet, Greet and Eat picnic at the Bresnahan School Playground on Thursday, Sept. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m., and will welcome families of students from pre-K through fifth grade to come enjoy an evening with friends, both old and new. Families should come to the event with their own picnic lunch and be prepared to sit in the grass and enjoy a good old-fashioned picnic. Ice cream will be supplied compliments of the PTO.
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The first Elementary School PTO meeting will be held Wednesday, Sept. 15, from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Bresnahan School Cafeteria. Those planning to attend can take advantage of the PTO's free baby-sitting service, as long as they reserve a spot in advance by contacting Kelly Gray (kellygray@comcast.net), providing the names and ages of their children by 3 p.m. on the Monday prior to the meeting. Infants and crawlers will have to accompany their mothers to the meeting.
Meetings for the rest of the school year will be held on the third Wednesday of each month, with the exception of April.
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The Newburyport Education Foundation is planning to launch a fall fundraiser to help pay for the new state-of-the-art music lab at the R.A. Nock Middle School. The Music Matters benefit concert, featuring Liz Frame and The Kickers, will be held at the Firehouse Center for the Arts on Saturday, Oct. 2, at 7:30 p.m.
The Dearhearts out of Frederick, Md., will also play their unique brand of Appalachian-tinged originals. According to NEF spokeswoman Marcia Samuelson, a host of special guest musicians will take the stage as well, including local favorite Bill Plante of the Bill Plante Trio, Ben Zanfagna of Doc Zig and Benny Z. Singer/songwriter Lynne Taylor will be on hand to perform a few of her original tunes.
Those wanting to take part will enjoy an evening of quality, original music and can obtain tickets through the Firehouse Center for the Arts at www.firehouse.org, or through the NEF at www.NewburyportEF.org, Samuelson said.
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Lynne Hendricks covers Newburyport schools for The Daily News. She can be reached at 978-462-6666, ext. 3254, or at lhendricks@newburyportnews.com.
