Five Administrators Retire from Portland Schools
Five administrators with a combined 166 years of experience working for the Portland Public Schools retired in the summer of 2008.
Presumpscot Elementary School Principal Carole Clark began her teaching career at the Peaks Island School in 1972. She also taught at Riverton Elementary. She was an assistant principal at Peaks, Riverton and Lyseth schools. When Presumpscot Elementary School reopened in 1988, she was chosen as its principal, a job that she held for 20 years.
Lincoln Middle School Principal Kathleen Rossi was hired as a teaching intern at Lyman Moore Junior High School in 1968. She has worked in all three of Portland’s middle schools and spent a year at Deering High School. Rossi taught language arts at Moore and worked as a guidance counselor at both Moore and King Junior High School. In 1984, she was appointed an assistant principal at Lincoln. She has been the principal of Lincoln since 1990.
Lyseth Assistant Principal Phoebe Russell began her career as a speech and language therapist. She joined the Portland Public Schools in 1973 and worked at West Elementary, Baxter, Morrill and Nathan Clifford schools. In 1981, she was hired as a speech and language therapist and learning strategist at Lyseth. She became the school’s half-time assistant principal in 1990 and the position became full-time four years later.
William Verrill, the district’s director of food services for 31 years, helped plan and open the Reed School Central Kitchen. He was a leader in the effort to remove desserts from the school lunch menu, reduce sugar usage and fat content and increase servings of fruits and vegetables. Past president of the Maine School Food Service Association, Verill testified before the U.S. Senate Committee about the School Food Service and Commodity Program. He served as national vice-chair of the National Commodity Letter of Credit Program, which worked in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Donna Green, director of Computer Technology Services, taught mathematics, physics and computer science at Deering High School for nine years. She created and developed the Advanced Placement computer science curriculum. While continuing to teach half-time at Deering, Green was appointed as the district’s half-time technology coordinator in 1993, and she became the full-time director of the technology department in 2003. She has been involved in everything from design of the district’s Web site to oversight of the laptop initiative in the Portland Public Schools, completion of the city’s INET wide-area fiber network and the district’s recent conversion to the Powerschool student information system.
