Good evening, and welcome to our special meeting for Monday, March 31st, 2025. I'd like to call
this meeting to order, and we'll begin with roll call. Bridget Cronin, here, Alicia Johnson,
here, Sarah Julie, here, Emily Martin, here, Laurel Reagan, here, and Leslie Zammer, here.
Thank you. Tonight we have one item under new business. We will not be taking public comment
on this item because it is a personnel matter. With that, can I have a motion to approve the
hiring of Steve Nolan as superintendent of schools beginning July 1st, 2025? Thank you,
Alicia. And a second, thank you, Leslie. Before I open this up for discussion, I'd like to welcome
and acknowledge Steve, who's in attendance with us this evening. This motion is voted on,
approve Steve's hiring as our next superintendent with a three-year contract beginning July 1st,
2025. With that, I'll open the floor to board discussion.
I have a prepared statement. I grew up with Falmouth, and I came back with my family. I have been here
and aware of many iterations of superintendent stewardship in our schools, and this is the
first one that I've been directly involved in, and it's a really big deal. So it is with full
fledged enthusiasm and an informed glimpse of the future of family public schools that I proudly
vote to appoint Steve Nolan as the superintendent of family schools starting July 1st, 2025.
It has already been widely communicated by the board, the incredible depth of experience Mr.
Nolan has over 10 years as superintendent in a complex main district, RSU-40. Over 10 years as an
assistant principal and principal of Lincoln Middle School just down the road in Portland,
as well as 10 years as a math teacher. Mr. Nolan is clearly committed to public education
excellence. His depth and breadth of experience speaks to that, as does his significant knowledge
of main law and the main department of education. The results he has achieved in all phases of his
career speak to his vision, his fortitude, and the deep responsibility he feels to all students.
This vote, I'd like to take a little bit of my preamble,
kind of touched on how important I think this decision is. This vote is perhaps the
most important vote any school board member can make. For this board, it is also the culmination
of lots of transparent and thorough work by the Falmouth School Board, especially by our chair
of the superintendent's search, Alicia Johnson. In coordination with Dave Durasi at the New England
School Development Council, also known as Men's Deck, the board developed a survey that
nearly 375 stakeholders completed, executed multiple focus groups for Falmouth citizens to
give further input and a separate focus group for staff in which a wide variety of Falmouth
School staff participated. All of that effort generated significant feedback that informed
both the candidate profile as well as the secondary document tasks and challenges in year one.
These documents guided the screening committee's task of narrowing down the applicant pool
to the candidates put forward to the board to interview and complete
extensive reference tasks. The screening committee was composed of 10 individuals of varying
degrees of involvement in our schools and broader community. Six of the members are residents of
Falmouth and parents and grandparents of Falmouth students. The board then used these documents
as a rubric of sorts when evaluating the finalists. Our community has greatly
informed this process and for that I'm not only grateful but confident in her choice we
are making tonight. While the under review process is confidential I would like to share
with folks when they watch this a few of my observations and impressions of Mr. Nolan,
that's okay. He's a highly organized leader and articulated and informed leader with
strong clear communication skills and an individual who understands the value of
strong leadership. However I would also guess that he has the confidence to let
actions speak louder than words when appropriate. I look forward to getting Mr.
to know Mr. Nolan further and working together but more importantly I look forward to our community
meeting him and vice versa. Welcome to Falmouth School State. I'm very optimistic about your
future with us in the next phase of our schools. Thank you for joining us.
I may repeat a little what Emily said but hopefully not so much.
First I would like to thank Alicia for her time and effort spearheading the superintendent
search process. She worked tirelessly and compressed time frame to facilitate the search
in an organized thoughtful and streamlined manner. Alicia I really appreciate all your
hard work. This was an important job and our schools and community will reap the benefits
from your very deliberate and professional process. Second I want to thank our community
students, parents, staff and other community members for their involvement in the search
process. The community's feedback regarding attributes necessary for superintendent success
collected through focus groups and surveys was the basis for the successful candidate profile.
This profile was my point of reference for evaluating our superintendent candidates.
I constantly refer to the four categories of expertise highlighted educational leadership,
engaged communicator, collaborative leadership practitioner, and experienced operations and
management leader. Steve Nolan meets each and every one of these requirements. Steve as Emily
mentioned, Steve spent a decade as a math teacher, a decade as a middle school administrator,
and most recently a decade as a superintendent. The long tenure at his previous districts
highlights the deep commitment Steve demonstrates to the communities he serves.
Steve's previous classroom experiences help him understand the day-to-day challenges
and opportunities our teachers and administrators encounter. Having a superintendent with this
experience is invaluable for both decision-making as well as relationship building. Steve's
steady demeanor and thoughtful, collaborative, data-driven approach to decision-making is
an asset I very much appreciate. Steve is the right person to build on our district's
strong foundation and lead us as we strive for constant improvement and I'm very excited
to welcome Steve Nolan as now it's next superintendent. Welcome.
I too am looking forward to voting in support of hiring Steve Nolan as superintendent of our
schools. I believe Steve's depth of experience in the role of superintendent will serve our
community well. While Steve's career has been dedicated to students coast to coast,
the majority of it has been committed to main students as a teacher through building principal
through superintendent. Given that and Steve's even temperament and diligent nature, I believe
Steve will easily transition into family schools and be able to get right to work with the
myriad of leaders we have in this district aligned under the common goal to deliver
an excellent public education to our students setting them up for the fulfilling lives of
their futures. I'd also like to thank Alicia, NASDEC and our screening committee for
committing to a professional process that did not sacrifice quality for neither speed nor
transparency and I'm happy to be concluding the process with the best fit for Falmouth. Welcome.
The role to be voting in support of Steve Nolan as Falmouth's new superintendent of schools.
Steve has a vision for education and the leadership skills to carry out that vision.
This includes deep listening, a collaborative approach and a proven track record of
educational excellence. In addition, Steve stands behind equitable and inclusive practices
with deep consideration for all students in the district. I'm looking forward to his tenure.
Welcome. Thank you, Sarah.
I am also enthusiastic and optimistic about voting for Steve Nolan as our next superintendent
of Falmouth schools. I believe this is a truly community-wide intergenerational effort
and process put forth by Alicia. I feel like it does represent the majority of our community
and I appreciate everyone's input and thorough communication with answers to
different questionnaires and participating in the various outlets that Alicia provided.
I'm enthusiastic also about Steve's wealth of experience. Everything from his collective
bargaining to budget process are things I'm eager to learn from and with around these things.
I think he'll be a tremendous mentor and work with developing our in-house talent that we
have so much of already in the district as we continue to evolve and grow.
These are his words, not mine, but he prioritizes growth, innovation, and excellence in education,
which I think is exactly what Falmouth needs. So I, as a former yachtsman, now navigator,
so excited to welcome you to the district. Best of luck.
Thank you. I am also really excited to vote tonight to appoint Steve as our next superintendent
of Falmouth schools. This board took this job very seriously and demanded a transparent process,
which I think we did provide that always included our community and let them know where we were
each step of the way. And so I want to thank my colleagues for your diligent work because you guys
did do a lot of diligent research and thought-provoking questions and things along the way. And I also
want to give a big shout out to the screening committee who did the hard work of screening
our candidates who we had excellent candidates and Mr. Nolan rose to the top.
And so I believe his experience in starting out as a teacher and then as an administrator,
and now as a superintendent, has made him thoroughly prepared for your next
school here at Falmouth schools, the mastery, your mastery of main school budgets, laws,
and policies, your collaborative leadership. And most importantly, I think your
goal of always putting students first is what makes you the perfect fit for our schools here.
And your resume and leadership style match exactly what our community, as many have said,
hundreds of people who filled out our survey and participated in our focus groups,
it matches who they've asked us to bring forward in a candidate. And so I'm really
excited for them to get to know you and for this school board to work alongside you
to continue the good work of this school district. Thank you.
Thanks, Alicia. And I'm just going to echo all the words of excitement and optimism
for our next superintendent, Stephen Nolan. I want to extend my deep appreciation to
Alicia Johnson for her steadfast leadership as our superintendent's search liaison.
And also a thank you to Leslie Zammer for her work alongside Alicia as part of the selection
hiring committee. Working with our consultants at NASDAQ over these last three months have
produced a process where we as a community were able to take abundant community feedback in the
form of surveys and Zoom meetings and with the community develop a vision for what Falmouth
is looking for in our next superintendent. We are so fortunate that the selection committee
had a great group of applicants to choose from that they approached this task with great dedication
and that they delivered Steve as a finalist for the full board to interview for this most important
job. I have great confidence that Steve with his exceptional educational background,
which includes classroom teaching, building administration and central office experience
and who is so well respected by his teachers, by students, by parents and community members
of the five towns he leads, I am confident that he will continue and create here and
prioritize and execute a long-term plan that brings consistency in practices, services,
resources and academic supports across the entire district. Steve has demonstrated in his
years at RSU 40 that he is an effective communicator and has a collaborative approach to work with
all involved in the schools and in our greater community and he is developing the relationships
needed to support all students improvement in the district. We're lucky to have him as our next
leader of leaders and I'm honored in the capacity of the Falmouth school board member to cast my
vote for him this evening. And with that we'll close for discussion on this matter and I'll
call for the vote. All those in favor of approving Steve Nolan as our next superintendent
of schools. The vote carries 7-0. Thank you and congratulations to Mr. Nolan.
Steve, since you drove all the way here for what 13 minute vote would you like to offer a few
comments to the board?
Well thank you very much. I appreciate your kind words. I think what I want to talk about the most
is how much I appreciate the thorough and thoughtful search process. I was impressed from the
beginning by the feedback from the focus groups, the representative panel you put together
for the interview process, the opportunity to tour the schools, a chance to meet with the
administrative team and of course our meaningful discussion. This experience for me, I think
Reflects the excellence that I see in this organization, and I'm really excited to work together with you to do the best for our students and to build on the success of foundless schools, so thank you again very much, go NAFs.
Thank you Steve, we all look forward to working with you.
And with that, can I have a motion to adjourn? Thank you Bridget, and as I can, thank you Emily, all those in favor, motion carries 7-0, we are adjourned, thank you and good night.