Former Ridge View and Harmony principal named RSU 26 superintendent
By Nok-Noi Ricker
BDN Staff
ORONO — One month after the superintendent of Regional School Unit 26 announced she was resigning to take a job at a school Down East, the school board chairman announced her replacement.
“I am pleased to announce that Mike Tracy has signed a contract to become our Superintendent for the coming year,” Brian McGill, chairman of the RSU 26 school board, said in a letter emailed to parents. “He has 17 years of experience in public education including teaching social studies and other topics in grades 4-12.”
Superintendent Joanne Harriman announced in June that she is leaving the Orono post that she held for three years to become principal of the Ella Lewis School in Steuben, which is closer to her home.
Tracy was scheduled to start Monday, July 25.
“His most recent experience is as Headmaster of Temecula Preparatory School, a K-12 public charter school in southern California with 1200 students,” McGill said in the letter. “Before that he served as principal at Harmony Elementary, Ridge View Community (Dexter) and Clinton Elementary Schools in Maine.”
Tracy worked for four years in Alternative Organizational Structure 94 in Dexter and spent the 2012-13 school year as an interim principal at Maine School Administrative District 49 in Clinton. For the last three years, he has been at Temecula Preparatory School, according to his LinkedIn page. He also started Mike Tracy Educational Consulting Group in June in San Diego, according to his LinkedIn page.
Tracy earned a bachelor’s degree in education at the University of Maine at Farmington in 2000, attended Calvary Chapel Bible College from 2001 to 2003 and earned his master’s degree in educational leadership and administration from the University of Maine in Orono in 2008, according to his LinkedIn page.
The Orono superintendent search committee consisted of the school board and teachers, administrators and community members, McGill said.
“Mike highly values communication and maintains an open door policy, is deeply committed to education, and is eager to meet his team and the community,” McGill said. “Please help me in welcoming him to Orono and to RSU 26.”