Dr. Peter Lancia, the new Superintendent of Westbrook schools, was introduced by Mike Foley. Mike has known Mr Lancia since Mike was a 6-year old student at Saccarappa.  Peter has been with Westbrook schools for 27 years, including teacher at Saccarappa, Principal at Congin, Assistant Superintendent, and now Superintendent.   During his career, he has been Maine Teacher of the Year, and Maine Curriculum Leader of the Year.  He is also a Lecturer at USM.
 
Westbrook has approximately 2600 students in K-12 and is one of the few school systems in the state that is growing. Many students are immigrants who speak a language other than English at home: Arabic, French, Russian, Somali and Vietnamese, among many others.
 
Peter spoke proudly of the community partnerships the school system has formed with Public Safety, mental health providers, and others.  The school district looks not just at test scores, but at the growth and learning of the “whole child”.
 
With the recently passed funding referendum, there will be many improvements at both Saccarappa and the Middle School. Saccarapa will double in size with the addition of dedicated space for a gym, library and cafeteria that they do not have now. The Middle School will add several classrooms.  They hope to break ground in the spring on both projects and complete the Middle School work by fall 2018 and the Saccarappa work by fall of 2020.