Sentinel & Enterprise
Saturday, May 1, 2004 - LEOMINSTER -- Leominster High School's fledgling small schools program has a new leader. Principal Dr. William Hart said Pauline Baker, currently the head of the World Languages department, was approved on Friday to be headmaster of the pilot small schools program. "I've been working with her for the last four years. When she applied, I knew whoever else chose to apply would have to be a water-walker to be able to compete with her," Hart said. "I knew her skills are exceptional." Baker will oversee 22 teachers and about 250 students in the small schools program this fall. Students, who participate voluntarily, will have all their academic classes with the staff members. Teachers will collaborate on educational strategies and lesson planning. Hart has said the goal is for students and staff to know each other and learn in a way that is not possible in a 1,800-student school. "Today, I feel the passion of learning as strongly as I did when ... I started teaching in Leominster in 1972," Baker said in her application letter. "This passion is at the core of my decision to take my career to the level of leadership as headmaster of the LHS pilot school." Hart said Baker, a French teacher who has been in the schools for more than 30 years, has been involved with the small schools from the beginning. Baker was one of the teachers who visited small schools in other districts, and she attended a conference in Ohio with the Coalition for Essential Schools. The coalition is guiding Leominster's transition to small schools. Baker has helped deliver professional development workshops and resurrected the school's French Club. The salary for the position has not yet been decided because Baker will fit into a different category of the administrators' union, Hart said. Parents and students will have a chance to meet the new boss at a small schools open house at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in the lower cafeteria at LHS. After a presentation by school officials, parents will have a chance to ask questions and meet Baker and the teachers. "I'm hoping by now people will have a better sense of the broad goals," Hart said. "Now that it's the time for people to be making concrete decisions about whether to be part of it, their questions become more specific." Hart said Baker is a "people person" who will fill the position well. "She's fabulous,
absolutely fabulous," Hart said. "She is such a great combination
of being an extremely bright woman with a very clear vision of effective
education." |
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