Sarah Norsworthy For Yarmouth School Committee

15 Years In Yarmouth

Experienced Renter & Homeowner

Experience as a Single/Co-Parent 

Full-Time Working Parent Of Two Children In Yarmouth Schools Since K (Now in High School)

• Children have been enrolled in school-based and community-based extra-curricular activities

Former Educator In Rural/Urban and Suburban Maine Communities - Experience With School Leadership

• M.Ed. Reading Education - UNH

• University of Maine trained Literacy Coach

• Ed.S. Instructional Technology - University of Maine - In Progress

• Ed.D. Candidate - Northeastern University - Focusing on Felt Belonging

School Service

• Equity Task Force

• Community Participant at School Committee Meetings

• Member of Hiring Team for an administrator

Current Employment - Social and Emotional Learning Implementation Specialist at the Maine DOE - supporting schools in building safe and inclusive learning environments

Naming the assets, exploring the histories and affirming the contributions of all groups of people, matters.

Our schools must actively work towards creating learning environments which allow for every.single.student to experience felt belonging.

• Belonging means that spaces change as people enter - belonging does not mean that we change people to fit existing spaces.

I created these signs, in the summer of 2020, to show school employees support for what I believe our community understands -  that teaching truth matters.

My volunteer work in our district has been through the work of the Equity Task Force, including participation on a hiring committee.

Many of our students, feel a sense of belonging in our schools. All can.

Our policies must be closely examined to continue to support belonging amongst every member of our school communities, particularly those who are not of dominant majority groups.  This benefits all.

Fiscally, regular critical examination of our school policies, is a conservative way to continuously improve the education our schools provide.

School committee meetings benefit from public engagement.  Increasing public engagement at school committee meetings, will benefit our schools.

Maine statute and our school board policies support active community participation in school board meetings.  

Communication about what is happening within our schools - celebrations and struggles is vital within a system of local control.

All voices must be heard, as long as they are respectful of the humanity and inherent worth of all people.

This fall I spoke at a school committee meeting to encourage the school committee to revise its policy of public participation in school committee meetings.  Policy BEDH has since been revised. 

• Yarmouth Schools must work towards active engagement of all families, mindful of the constraints some may face.

Per Maine statute 1001: 21:

•  "A school board shall regularly communicate with school employees in the school board's school administrative unit and members of the public who reside within the boundaries of the school administrative unit.  

[PL 2021, c. 281, §1 (NEW).]