Ann Hassett recalls her rising excitement, as she stood outside Nobleboro Central School waiting for the kids to arrive on the first day of classes.
“As soon as they got here, I knew I was in a very special place,” Hassett said Sept. 20. “The people here – the children, the teachers, the parents, all the staff – have a strong sense of caring for each other. We had some new students come at the last minute, and everybody made them feel very welcome and comfortable, and everybody made me feel very comfortable.”
Hassett, who is beginning her 30th year in public education, said she can’t think of a better place to start the new decade.
She was raised in Marshfield, Mass., but was careful to point out that six generations of her father’s family are from Maine. She attended Wheaton College and did graduate work at Lesley, in Cambridge, Mass., studying literacy development and communication in schools.
Her mother was a first-grade teacher and a reading specialist. Growing up, Hassett said, people always asked her if she was going to be a teacher like her mom. “Absolutely not” was always her response, she said.
After six years teaching high school English, Hassett spent 18 years teaching elementary school; she was a first-grade teacher and reading specialist. “That’s just the way things go,” she said.
“I considered myself a life-long teacher,” Hassett said. “When I got recruited into administration, I didn’t know how to feel about it.”
For the last five years, Hassett has worked half time as the assistant principal at Medomak Valley High School and half time as the No Child Left Behind Coordinator for RSU/MSAD 40.
As she enters NCS, Hassett said she’s not planning on making any major changes.
“This school is a ship with a crew that knows what it’s doing and is heading in the right direction,” Hassett said. “There are so many good things going on that I just need to keep the ship going in the right direction.”
She feels well equipped to maintain the positive trend in reading test scores started by her predecessor, Mark Deblois. However, in an interview last spring, Deblois said that the school still has work to do on its math program.
Hassett said that AOS 93 is working hard to develop curricula across the board. “We’re going to be looking closely at the results of our assessments,” she said.
She was pleased that the school made “adequate yearly progress” on the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) tests last year in both math and English, but acknowledged that there is still work to be done.
“The teachers here are really strong, veteran teachers,” Hassett said. “Working together, we’ll have no trouble moving forward.”
So far, Hassett has been impressed with her AOS 93 colleagues and thanked the other administrators in the district for their help in assisting her in acclimating to her new position.
Hassett said she wants parents to know that her door is always open and to feel they’re partners in their children’s educations. “I think parents already feel that way in Nobleboro,” she said.
Any parents interested in meeting Hassett can do so at the NCS open house at 6 p.m. on Sept. 23.
