GORHAM – Theodore “Ted” Sharp will retire as superintendent of Gorham schools effective June 30, 2015, after 11 years on the job, but he doesn’t plan on vacating a life-long career in education.

Sharp’s announcement came on Aug. 25, two days before the first day of school, during his meeting with Gorham teachers, administrators, staff and School Committee Chairman Dennis Libby.

Sharp became the superintendent in the fall of 2004, succeeding Michael Moore.

Sharp, 71, told the gathering he’s beginning his 50th year as an educator. His tenure in Gorham, which began in 2004, has been marked by transformation in the district, which included a new school and an upgrade in the elementary system. On Wednesday, all-day kindergarten in Gorham began.

“I cannot point out just one thing that working with my colleagues we have accomplished,” Sharp said in a statement to the American Journal. “Establishing a sense of common purpose across the school district, reinforcing that we are five schools/one district set the stage for our work together during my tenure here.

“I would say that the emphasis on helping each student to be a person of integrity and to be civic-minded, to contribute to the common good has been at the core of our work,” he said.

Libby said the School Committee will begin discussing the process to select Sharp’s successor “at a meeting very soon, and details about this will be forthcoming, but needless to say, it will be a high priority for us to be working on.”

He added, “Ted’s contributions have been numerous over the years and he will be missed.”

Darryl Wright, School Committee vice chairman, on Wednesday said Sharp has done an “excellent job. I’ve enjoyed working with him.”

Under Sharp’s leadership, the antiquated, rural White Rock School was mothballed and replaced by the $21 million Great Falls Elementary School that opened in 2011. The new building allowed the district’s reconfiguration for its three elementary schools each to house kindergarten through Grade 5.

“We went through that seamlessly,” a former School Committee member and board chairman, James Hager, said this week.

On Sharp’s watch, Gorham schools in recent years have been security conscious, with tightened safety measures implemented. There was a school-shooting scare in December 2012. Gorham school officials and police were on alert following a posted Internet threat that a high school in southern Maine would be targeted with harm.

Sharp, on the school website, ordered intensified vigilance at the town’s five schools, but the threat proved unfounded.

Sharp has led the Gorham School Department through some controversies, too. In 2007, the department dealt with allegations that some high school ice hockey players had attended an underaged drinking party just days before playing in a tournament.

Then, in 2008, 300 petitioners claimed some high school classrooms didn’t have American flags and wanted the Pledge of Allegiance reinstituted at the school.

In 2012, a Gorham janitorial supply firm publicly alleged it was shut out from selling products to Gorham schools.

Earlier this year, parents were upset after a so-called cupcake crackdown at the three elementary schools banned sweets at parties in the schools that promoted healthier snacks.

And during the economic downturn beginning in 2008, Sharp presided over large job cuts in the school department.

“We eliminated 50 positions over three years,” Hager said.

Hager said Sharp raised awareness of the importance of community support and saved taxpayers money.

“We have, with the support of the Gorham School Committee and the citizens of Gorham, worked together to minimize the corrosive impact on public education by the most serious recession since the Great Depression,” Sharp said in his Monday meeting with Gorham educators.

Hager credited Sharp with not spending the Gorham district’s federal stimulus money to fund staff positions.

“He’s been a fiscally prudent leader,” Hager said.

While stepping down in Gorham, Sharp plans to continue on in education.

“Wanting to devote more time to teaching, I intend, as of July 1, 2015, to expand my responsibilities as a professor in the international master’s degree program at Framingham (Massachusetts) State University, a position I have held for the past 15 years,” Sharp told Gorham educators.

Hager, who was on the Gorham board that hired Sharp, praised him this week as a leader.

“He helps promote other leaders to think independently for solutions,” Hager said.

Hager said Sharp brought a variety of experiences and contacts with him to Gorham.

“He’s worked in South America,” Hager said.

Sharp brought an international flavor to Gorham. His educational background includes studying at Oxford University in England and he became a headmaster at the American School of Rio de Janeirio in Brazil. In his career as an educator, Sharp has established school exchange programs with the United Kingdom, France, Spain, China, Canada and Mexico.

While the Gorham superintendent, Sharp traveled to Beijing, China, in 2006 and 2011 to initiate a school partnership program and promote a Chinese cultural course at Gorham High School.

After Sharp’s retirement announcement on Monday, a School Department statement cited Sharp for his “caring, collegial and competent leadership,” and the statement said Sharp received a standing ovation and applause in Monday’s meeting.

“It was almost exactly 11 years ago today that I first stood before you, letting you know who I am and what my core beliefs about education and about life are, by sharing stories of certain personages and events in history, stories that would enable everyone to begin to understand, and, perhaps to appreciate this new superintendent’s principles and beliefs, as we began our journey together,” Sharp said in his comments.

Sharp told the gathering he is pleased with the work they have accomplished together and thanked each for their dedication.

“We have much work before us this year and I look forward to the challenges and the opportunities with great energy and enthusiasm,” Sharp said in the statement.

Sharp is the town’s second department head this summer to announce a retirement. Police Chief Ronald Shepard previously said that he’d retire on Nov. 4.

“Ted” Sharp