ST. GEORGE, Maine — A Portland man with a wide range of experience will become the first superintendent for the newly created St. George Municipal School District.
Michael Felton was unanimously approved Wednesday night as the superintendent by the St. George School Committee.
In making the appointment, the committee cited Felton’s experience as a teacher, school administrator and liaison in small coastal school districts.
“Mike was the ideal candidate for St. George,” Bill Reinhardt, chairman of the St. George School Committee said Friday in a news release. “He brings the right temperament, skills, educational philosophy and, most important, experience in creating and managing a community school. “
A magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Felton began his career as an Island Institute teaching fellow at the Vinalhaven School. He spent two years teaching American History to sixth and seventh graders and designed programs to increase post-graduate education for Vinalhaven students.
At the Island Institute in Rockland, Felton was the education outreach officer, where he came to understand the unique attributes, potential, and challenges of island and coastal community schools, Reinhardt said
Felton left the Island Institute to return to Vinalhaven where he served for five years as a teacher and school leader.
In 2009, Felton was named a Gates Public Law Scholar and left Vinalhaven to attend law school at the University of Washington. While at law school Felton was an editor of the law review and the lead organizer of a national conference considering equal access to high quality education for poor students and students of color.
After graduation, Felton returned to Maine where he served for a year as a law clerk to Maine Supreme Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley.
A resident of Portland, Felton, his wife, Keely, and their two children, Anya and Isaiah, will be relocating to St. George.
St. George voted in November to withdraw from Regional School Unit 13 based in Rockland. The town elected its first board of directors in December.
Mary Alice McLean, who is the current principal at the St. George School and the Gilford Butler School in South Thomaston, will be the St. George School’s principal.