Recently the South Portland School Board voted unanimously to extend school Superintendent Suzanne Godin’s contract for another three years through June 30, 2014. The contract included a 3 percent wage increase from $112,000 to $115,360, but also included a $10,500 increase in retirement contributions from $11,000 to $21,500. The School Board tried to justify the large increase by stating that her retirement contributions were low compared to other school administrators. What they should have done was compare the retirement contributions to employees in the private sector and would have found that her current retirement contribution of $11,000 was already more than the average contribution in the private sector for an employee earning $115,000 a year. Rather than increasing her retirement by $10,500 they should have reduced the retirement contributions for all the other school administrators down to the superintendent’s level.

Several School Board members praised the superintendent’s performance, but no details were reported on what her accomplishments were during the past three years that justified the praise. Unlike the School Board, I don’t share their opinion on her performance. Overall, I would give her a “D” and would not have extended her contract beyond the June 2011 date. My “D” grade is based on her poor administrative skills, lack of financial accountability and the overall poor performance of the South Portland students academically based on recent Maine Educational Assessment scores.

In March of 2009, I questioned the superintendent’s proposed June 2010 budget, noting several years of overstated budgets and excessive surpluses and estimated that the June 2009 budget would generate at least a $1.8 million surplus. She stated that the budget was correct and that there would be no significant surplus. She was wrong and a surplus of over $2 million resulted. In March of 2010, I questioned the 2011 budget and stated that there would be another surplus for the year ended June 2010, because of budgeting errors. The superintendent again stated that there would be no surplus for the year. Not surprisingly, she was wrong and the year ended June 2010, with an approximately $1.1 million surplus. Failure to correctly budget in Portland a few years ago resulted in the resignation of their superintendent. In South Portland these errors are just ignored by our financially challenged School Board.

In year ended June 2009, South Portland spends on a per student basis about 25 percent more than Scarborough and about 10 percent more than Cape Elizabeth on education. Based on how much South Portland spends, we should only accept very good performance by our students. While test scores are not perfect, the recent MEA test results are very disappointing. The 2006-07 math and reading MEA average scaled scores for grades 3-8 reported South Portland scores just slightly above the state average for all grades except fifth grade, which was slightly below the state average. South Portland’s 2006-07 MEA scores were much lower than both Scarborough and Cape Elizabeth, but were also lower than many other schools in the area. Two years later, the 2008-09 math and reading MEA scores showed that South Portland’s scores got worse as not one of the six grades 3-8 had average scaled scores greater than the state average. Most schools in the area saw their test scores go up as compared to the state average in year 2008-09 vs. 2006-07. South Portland’s scores in 2008-09 were lower than several communities, like Auburn, Sanford, and Westbrook. In addition, by 2008-09 even Portland schools like King Middle School, which has a much greater percentage of English as a second language students than South Portland, scored significantly better than South Portland for all three grades 6-8. That South Portland spends significantly more on education per student than all of the schools that they scored lower than confirms how poorly South Portland’s schools are doing and the trend is downward under this superintendent.

It’s time for South Portland to demand accountability from its school officials and the first action it should take would be an appointment of a new School Board member who will challenge the superintendent and others and demand better results.

Albert A. DiMillo Jr. lives in South Portland.