After 41 Years Linda Bleile is Saying Goodbye

As Linda Bleile concludes her 41 years as educator and principal, she said she is thankful to have had a career she truly loved, which also allowed her to be an involved mother.

“What more could I ask for?” Bleile said in an interview April 10.

Bleile attributes the success and enjoyment of her career to the people she has worked with, as well as good relationships with parents and the community.

The saddest part about retiring from Wiscasset Middle School, Bleile said, is realizing how much she will miss the people that have become a part of her life, including the thousands of students she has taught and gotten to know over the years. These relationships have made a huge difference in her life, she said.

A personal goal of Bleile’s, which has been supported by the staff, was to make the school one where students, staff, parents and community members felt welcomed.

“I care what the community thinks of our school,” Bleile said.

Bleile said she has often expressed to parents the importance of creating a partnership with the home and school and has always had an open door policy.

“The more communication we have the better we can serve the children,” Bleile said.

In Bleile’s office hangs many awards and recognitions she received over the years including Maine Administrator of the Year (2009), Maine Principals Association Middle Level Principal of the Year (2011); National Distinguished Principal (2011); President of the Maine Principals’ Association and several legislative sentiments. However she takes no personal credit for any recognition she has received over the years.

“I often felt guilty about accepting these awards,” Bleile said, “Because it’s my teachers and staff that deserve the credit for the successes at the school.”

Bleile said her job as principal has been made easier, not only because of the support of her teachers but by the help of her administrative assistant Cindy Collamore, and secretary Stacey Souza.

“They always have my back and I am truly grateful for all that they have done and continue to do,” Bleile said.

Souza said Bleile leads by quiet example and she has learned by just watching her.

“She does her job with so much class and integrity. She will definitely leave a legacy here at the middle school,” Souza said.

Bleile said when she was in graduate school she was warned by her professor that principals are often left feeling alone because of the solidarity among the teachers.

“I have never felt that away. Most of the time, I forget I am the principal,” Bleile said.

She said she and her staff work as a team and she values and trusts their input, “I don’t manage in isolation,” Bleile said.

Former Wiscasset Middle School teacher Bob Sommers, who worked with Bleile for 37 years, said Bleile was a great teacher who knew her subject well. The staff always respected Bleile for her leadership qualities and often looked to her for guidance, Sommers said.

“She’s been good for Wiscasset. She’s put her heart and soul into her job,” he said.

When Wiscasset Superintendent Alan Hawkins first came to town in 2002, one of the first tasks he faced was hiring a principal for the Wiscasset Middle School.

Hawkins said he had concerns about Bleile taking on the role of principal, because she had been a teacher at the school.

“Sometimes when a teacher goes up the ladder, a lot of the trust goes away,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said he offered Bleile the position for one year to see how things went. After the year was over, Hawkins said he told Bleile, ‘You are in there permanently.’

“What she did after one year was absolutely amazing,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said one of the keys to Bleile’s success is she is an “amazing listener.”

Bleile said three of the proudest accomplishments at the school since she has been principal, includes the renovation of the Gregoire wing, implementation of an afterschool program and receiving a grant to bring the Expeditionary Learning Model to the school.

Several former students of Bleile’s are now her colleagues including Wiscasset High School Principal Deb Taylor.

Taylor said she has memories of reading “The Outsiders” in Bleile’s reading class several years ago.

“My twin sister and I still quote passages from that book to each other when reminiscing about our middle school days,” Taylor said.

Taylor counts Bleile as a professional mentor and a friend. Taylor, who also went from teacher to principal, said she learned a lot from Bleile while making the transition to an administrator.

“Her insight and wisdom have been invaluable.” Taylor said.

Bleile said she is starting to see a third generation of students coming through the Wiscasset Middle School.

Patti-Jo Averill and her children, Dan and Laura, both had Bleile as their teacher. Averill had Bleile for a reading back in 1976 and remembers learning something during each of Bleile’s classes. She also recalled the amount of respect students had for her.

“You didn’t raise too much hell in her class,” Averill said.

Bleile’s two sons Eric, now 37, and Steven, 33, are also their mother’s former students. Bleile said her sons managed the situation pretty well. She recalls one day during class when her son, Eric, asked, ‘Mom, why do you keep using such big words?’

Bleile said Eric had a little easier time with having a mom for a teacher because several students in his class had parents who were teachers as well.

Her son Steven tried to be a little more discreet about the relationship. She said he would often to plan to meet her at the car by a certain time rather than walk out of the school together.

Her teaching profession allowed her the opportunity to attend her sons’ sporting events, which included seven years of varsity basketball and golf. It also allowed her to have the summers off to travel with them.

It was after her sons went off to college that Bleile went back to school to earn her assistant principal’s certification.

“It was challenging enough to have a mother for a teacher, let alone a principal,” Bleile said.

Ed Bleile, her husband of 40 years, predicts his wife isn’t done yet and will likely find something to do in the educational field. “She’s not the type to be sitting around,” he said.

“She’s got a lot of good years left and that’s where her heart is,” he said.

According to Bleile, she has no immediate plans for doing anything except to re-connect with old friends, which she hasn’t done for some time.

Bleile said for the past 12 years she has felt like she’s been on the job 24/7, because she is always thinking about her job, which she doesn’t regret.

“I am looking forward to some down time,” Bleile said. “I need a break.”

In 1973, fresh out of college, Bleile began her career as an seventh and eighth grade reading teacher at what was then called the Wiscasset Elementary School that housed grades K-8.

During that year, the Wiscasset Primary School was under construction. Following completion, students in kindergarten through fourth grade were moved to the new school. “We were very crowded then,” Bleile said.

During her first year teaching, Bleile said she had a total of 180 seventh and eighth grade students with only six teachers, a 30:1 student-teacher ratio. With that many students, Beile said it was extremely difficult to give the students the amount of feedback they deserved on their work.

During the ’80s, well before any books or articles were written about integrated learning, Bleile said she and the eighth grade team was already implementing such concepts.

“We were too busy teaching to write the book,” Bleile said.

She recalls her team did an integrated unit on the Titanic. Students would line up the length of the ship outside, holding color coded cards to indicate the different locations of passengers, while the band played music likely to have been playing during the sail, Bleile said.

Bleile said the team’s learning technique was noticed by other educators. In 1987 the team was invited to the International Technology Conference in Denver to share their Titanic presentation.

Today’s enrollment at the school is quite different. This year there are only 83 students in the seventh and eight grades, Bleile said.

Recognizing the smaller enrollments at the three Wiscasset schools, Bleile said she understands the fiscal responsibility to provide the most cost-effective education.

Careful consideration must be made when consolidating the Wiscasset facilities in order to keep programs and the learning environment required to meet the needs of the students, Bleile said.

Since joining RSU 12, budget constraints and creating equality within the schools in the district has caused many of the programs once offered at the Middle School to be taken away, Bleile said.

“We have felt the loss here,” Bleile said.

“I am thrilled the Wiscasset School Board plans to re-establish foreign language at the middle school,” Bleile said.

Bleile said Wiscasset rushed into consolidating with RSU 12, which wasn’t a good fit because of the diverse educational philosophies among the group of schools.

“We jumped in and it didn’t feel good,” Bleile said.

Now that Wiscasset is on its own again, stakeholders need to recapture the vision for education it once had, Bleile said.

A new generation of students needing education is looming, Bleile said. She said changes are coming including proficiency-based learning, Common Core Standards and new national testing. “The time is right. I want to leave while I still love my job,” she said.