Leadership decided for new Old Town school

OLD TOWN – The Old Town School Board is thinking about who will lead the new 550-pupil, $13 million elementary school off Stillwater Avenue when it is scheduled to open 16 months from now.

It appears longtime local principal Chris Avila will be principal at the facility, according to school board Chairman Jim Dill. Avila is principal at the Herbert Sargent and Helen Hunt elementary schools with responsibility for about 260 pupils and 30 staff members.

On Monday night, the school board also nominated Jeanna Tuell to be assistant principal at the new elementary school. Tuell currently is a teaching principal for Union 93 at the Adams School in Castine. Union 93 is composed of the towns of Blue Hill, Penobscot, Brooksville and Castine.

Avila, whose full name is Philip C. Avila, received a bachelor’s degree in education from Salem State College in Massachusetts. He received a master’s degree in education administration and a certificate of advanced study in the superintendency from the University of Maine.

Avila currently is completing his 26th year as a principal in Old Town. Before that, he taught in elementary classrooms in Old Town for five years.

Avila is a past president of the Maine Principals Association and currently is involved in a committee studying the feasibility of putting a gifted and talented program into Old Town schools. He is the affirmative action officer for the school system.

Next fall, Tuell will be principal at the Herbert Gray and Jefferson Street elementary schools in Old Town. The schools are among four in the city scheduled to close in June 2003 in anticipation of the new K-5 combined elementary school opening in the fall of 2003.

The new school is being built by H.E. Sargent Inc. of Stillwater.

Tuell earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and a master’s degree in education administration from the University of Maine. She began her teaching career in the Bangor School Department, teaching 16-25 third-graders in a self-contained classroom from 1988 to 1996. She obtained her current position in Union 93 in 1996 and has been responsible for educational programming, building maintenance, PET coordination, staff development, curriculum development and teaching the Title 1 program, according to information from the superintendent’s office.

During her teaching career, Tuell has been involved in many committees and has headed a professional development committee in Union 93, a curriculum development committee and the Castine Education Foundation, helping to raise $10,000 since the group was formed in 1997 for various education endeavors. Tuell has worked on a systemwide newspaper, “The Coastal Breeze,” for Union 93 and has worked on a professional portfolio committee to change the process of professional teaching evaluations to involve a self-assessment component.

Her contract with the Old Town School Department begins July 1. Her salary will be worked out on the new appointment scale but was not announced Monday, according to Chairman Dill.