The Portland Public Schools launched the 2026-2027 school year on Aug. 25 with an all-staff welcome event whose theme was “Belonging. Believing. Achieving.” The entire staff of more than 1,300 PPS employees gathered in one space—Merrill Auditorium—to kick off the new school year as one team. It was an opportunity to share some of last year’s successes and share plans for the coming year before students were scheduled to return the following week.

The event kicked off with an exploration of the overarching theme. “Our shared charge as a team is to ensure that every student learns and thrives, not just academically, but as whole people,” Dr. Cheryl Proctor, the district’s chief of schools and academics explained. “This is only possible if every student feels a sense of belonging and connection at school, experiences the adults around them consistently believing in them and holding them to high expectations, and has the opportunities and tools they need to meet those expectations and to keep achieving—in school and beyond.”

The gathering was also an opportunity to share information about recent key district and school leadership transitions.

Staff members of individual schools and central departments sat grouped together in designated sections of Merrill and were given shout-outs for their achievements over the past year. That gave everyone the chance to clap and cheer for each other.

Board of Public Education members attended the gathering and Board Chair Sarah Lentz addressed employees, telling them that their work truly makes a difference not only to students but to their families and the whole community. “In a world that often feels fractured and scary, you are helping lead and keep the community together,” she said. 

Superintendent Ryan Scallon talked about the district’s five-year Strategic Plan and outlined the successes through the first two years of the plan. “We can’t do this work without the amazing people in this room,” he told the employees. 

The successes the superintendent highlighted include:

• Math proficiency is up 7.3 points in four years. Reading is at a four-year high.
• Schools moved their own numbers. Talbot grades 3 to 5 math went from 39% to 52%. Portland High reading rose 19 points.
• More students are in school. Chronic absenteeism is down, and five elementary schools are below the state goal of 10%. Lincoln Middle cut suspensions by 82%.
• PATHS students earned 427 industry certifications and sent three SkillsUSA gold medalists to nationals.
• Portland Adult Education graduated the largest class in its history: 74 diplomas and 65 HiSET credentials.
• The Portland Public Schools was named Agency of the Year by the Maine chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, which recognized the district for culturally responsive, collaborative practices with students & families.
• Systems improvements such as data infrastructure that shows progress by school.   

The 2026-2027 school year marks the third year of the plan and Scallon said the district’s initiatives this year will include new math curricula at all grade levels; continued social-emotional learning work at all levels; resource-level literacy intervention for students with disabilities and foundational curricula in the Beach and Breathe programs; and, for multilingual learners, English language development scaffolds in core content, starting with math, a plan for dual language immersion and a data dashboard.

Individual school and district leaders spoke from their own experience about the theme of belonging, believing and achieving. Deering Principal Aris Ayala received a standing ovation after speaking about the importance of “deeply believing in our students” but also how it’s necessary for educators to believe in themselves to do that. They asked how we can tell students that “mistakes are a part of learning” if we consider our own mistakes to be failures and evidence that we’re not good enough. They concluded that “belief in ourselves and our students and each other will get us through.”

The approximately hour-long event came to a close with Maine’s Poet Laureate Dawn Potter reading her poem titled “First Game,” highlighting an emotional roller coaster of feelings on the part of families, students and a community during an elementary-school basketball game.