RSU 21 kicks off new school year with a message: 'It Starts With Us'
KENNEBUNK, Maine — With summer vacation now behind them, RSU 21 students returned to school this week, but their teachers and other staff members got there first when they attended a symposium of guest speakers last Thursday, Aug. 25.
Sporting blue T-shirts reading “It Starts With Us,” educators attending the daylong forum at Kennebunk High School focused on such topics as social-emotional learning, literacy instruction, restorative school culture, and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB).
Earlier this week, Superintendent of Schools Terri Cooper looked back on the symposium and looked ahead to the 2022-2023 academic year. She said it is the regional school unit’s commitment to staff and students to “articulate our needs with fidelity,” implement approaches for support staff, and inspire all members of RSU 21 to transform students’ lives and “in turn, transform our communities.”
“We owe it to our students to increase their opportunities for success in life,” Cooper said in an email. “My hope is that each staff member walked away from the symposium knowing that it will take all of us, working together to meet the needs of each and every student in RSU 21.”
Following a grab-and-go breakfast, School Board member Dawn Therrien kicked off the symposium with opening remarks from the stage of the high school’s auditorium. She acknowledged that the work of teachers is difficult and shared a story from two years ago, when she was considering running for the RSU 21 School Board.
Therrien said she was exercising at the gym, when a woman approached her and said, “I don’t care about the RSU very much. My kids are grown.” Therrien told the educators in the KHS auditorium how she replied.
“You know,” Therrien said she told the woman, “you need to care about the RSU very much. You do. The kids who attend school here, they’re doing great things with their lives, and there are people here helping them do that.”
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Therrien said she told the woman that some RSU 21 students could become doctors or CNAs who are “going to care for you down the road.” She said she told the woman that another student could become so inspired by their high school chemistry teacher that they “go off to college and they find a cure for cancer.”
“Somebody’s going to graduate, and they’re going to own their own mechanic shop, and they’re going to fix your car when you so desperately need it,” Therrien said she told the woman. “You’ll be in a bind, and they’re going to be the one to fix your car.”
The Regional School Unit - the RSU - is people, Therrien said.
“We’re a huge team of people who are doing really great things here,” she said. “Right here, in our community.”
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A return to normal
The symposium featured such guest speakers and session-facilitators as authors Lester Laminack and Jennifer Abrams; DEIB Practice Leader Lawrence Alexander; Restorative Practices Coordinator Stacey Barlow; KHS School Resource Officer Jason Champlin; Literacy Specialist Teri Marsh; Bruce Potter, a superintendent of two school districts in New York; Jini Rae Sparkman, the director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion at Holderness School; and Dean Auriemma, a national education consultant.
This is Cooper’s third year at the helm of RSU 21. During her first two years, she and her fellow administrators and educators were charged with navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and staving off the threats the historic crisis posed to health and safety. On Monday, Cooper offered a sense that the district is returning to life as it once knew it.
“I am excited about the start of a new school year with many pre-COVID routines in place,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: RSU 21 students kick off new school year with pre-COVID routines
