4 school systems achieve Sports Done Right OK Board granted accreditation Nov. 7

Four more school systems, including SAD 28 and Five Towns CSD, which includes Camden Hills High School in Rockport, have been granted full accreditation in Sports Done Right, a University of Maine initiative that serves as a guide for schools and youth sports organizations.

SAD 71, which is made up of the towns of Kennebunk and Kennebunkport, was also approved. Augusta Public Schools was approved for preliminary accreditation. The board will review the district’s progress in the required areas at the end of the school year.

The Sports Done Right board of directors granted the accreditations on Nov. 7.

Those schools join SAD 5, which includes Rockland, Owls Head, and South Thomaston, SAD 51 (Cumberland, North Yarmouth), and the Winthrop Public Schools in having full accreditation in Sports Done Right.

“All four districts provided the Board of Directors with sufficient evidence that not only supports the efforts taken in the communities but their commitment to the student-athletes,” said Karen Hawkes, the director of the Maine Center for Sport and Coaching, at which Sports Done Right is based.

Five Towns CSD includes the towns of Appleton, Camden, Hope, Lincolnville and Rockport. SAD 28 includes Camden and Rockport. Those two sites are the first nonpilot sites to be approved. Initially, 12 pilot sites were involved in Sports Done Right.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about where this will lead us,” said Tori Manzi, an SAD 28 school board member who was a member of the leadership team that examined Sports Done Right. “I’m an optimist, and I think this will lead to a more positive experience for our student-athletes.”

Accreditation is granted to a district by the Sports Done Right board after the district fulfills and exceeds the necessary requirements, including evaluations and assessments by the board.

Manzi is eager to see how the SAD 28 and Five Towns’ new status goes, particularly when rival Rockland comes to town for athletic events.

“It will be interesting to see how the two Sports Done Right schools do against each other,” she said. “That’s the real test to see if we can have a respectful game.”

Manzi credited Camden Hills athletic director Bill Hughes with coordinating Sports Done Right efforts in SAD 28 and Five Towns.

The federally funded Sports Done Right program was founded in June 2003 by Robert A. Cobb, former Dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Maine, and J. Duke Albanese, a senior policy advisor for the Great Maine Schools Project at the Mitchell Institute and former Maine Commissioner of Education.