Back to School

August 26, 2022

Dear friends,

Welcome to the 2022-23 school year in Westbrook! I hope that your summer was filled with great adventures as well as quiet moments, and time spent with family and friends. We begin the new year with a renewed spirit of hope, joy, and commitment to supporting every student every day. I am pleased to especially welcome our new families to the Westbrook Schools! A number of students have enrolled over the summer including our kindergarteners, the Class of 2035! We are glad you are here!

I am also pleased to welcome many new staff to the district. They are coming to Westbrook from many different places and will certainly enrich our community. Some are coming back to Westbrook after working elsewhere - welcome home! We also have several veteran employees who have taken on new responsibilities and positions within the school department. Let’s congratulate them and wish them the best in their new roles.  

The first days of school are staggered this year to provide time for orientation and transition as well as time for staff to prepare for students. First days of school are as follows:

  • Wednesday, August 31: Only Grades 1 and 2, 5 and 6, 9 and 10 attend

  • Thursday, September 1: Only Grades 3 and 4, 7 and 8, 11 and 12 attend

  • Tuesday, September 6: Kindergarten begins, and all students grades 1-12 attend

School hours remain the same as last year:

School

Start Time

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday Dismissal Time

Wednesday Early Release Time (Beginning September 7)

Canal

8:40am

3:20pm

2:20pm

Congin

8:40am

3:20pm

2:20pm

Saccarappa

8:40am

3:20pm

2:20pm

WMS

7:35am

2:15pm

1:15pm

WHS

7:50am

2:30pm

1:30pm

Drop off and pick up times vary by school and often depend on bus schedules. Please see the school department website for bus stop and route information

Open Houses will be IN PERSON this year! The schedule is as follows:

Canal School Wednesday, August 31, 5:15pm

Congin School Wednesday, August 31, 5:00pm

Saccarappa School Wednesday, August 31, 5:00pm

WMS Gr. 5 Tuesday, August 30, 5:30pm; Gr. 6,7,8 Thursday, September 15, 5:30pm

WHS Thursday, September 29, 6:00pm

WRVC Thursday, September 1, 5:00pm

We hope you will be able to come to meet our school staff, students, and families. 

As you may know, all students now eat for free in Maine schools! Maine leads the way in providing free meals for all students and addressing hunger and food insecurity.. We still need families to complete the annual Free and Reduced Meals applications as eligibility impacts our federal funding. Please be sure to complete the forms. 

While we continue to be mindful of the COVID 19 pandemic, our protocols have been scaled back. Face masks remain a personal choice regardless of vaccination status. We continue to encourage people who are not feeling well to stay home and to be tested if they have COVID symptoms. People diagnosed with a positive case of COVID are required to quarantine for 5 days after which they can return to school/work if they are symptom free. People who are close contacts do not have to quarantine. We encourage social distancing to the extent possible, frequent hand washing and sanitizing, and safe coughing and sneezing. Of course, if situations change, we will revisit and may make adjustments to our protocols. Thank you to everyone who has helped us stay healthy and safe over these past two years.

Have you seen our new Westbrook School Department website? It is still located at www.westbrookschools.org, but it has been updated over the summer. We are very excited to provide enhanced communication that now includes photos, news items, and live feed messages as well as posts to social media. The website can also be accessed in multiple languages and is very user friendly. Your feedback is helpful as we are still reorganizing pages and working out glitches. Let us know what you think!

I look forward to seeing you all soon. I wish all of our students, families, and staff the very best year ever!

Take care and be strong!

Dr. Peter Lancia, Superintendent of Schools