SCARBOROUGH — Superintendent of Schools George Entwistle III announced last week that he is retiring from public education. 

Entwistle, 61, in a letter delivered to the School Board at the Dec. 3 meeting, said his retirement will take effect June 30, 2016. 

“It is with some mixed emotions that I advise you … that it is my intent to retire from Scarborough Public Schools and from public K-12 education effective at the end of the 2015-2016 school year,” Entwistle said in his letter.

“It is my belief that this superintendent opportunity in Scarborough, Maine will attract a strong and capable leader who can continue and advance the important work of rebuilding the Scarborough Schools,” Entwistle told the board, “so that over the next five years, they will take their rightful place as one of the top performing public schools in New England.”

On Monday, Entwistle said he and his wife are retiring together, but his focus isn’t on the next step they will take. Although he plans to eventually “do something different,” he said on Monday, “that’s not the focus right now.”

Entwistle said he made the announcement at this time in a “deliberate effort to let the board know of my intent to retire … so that they could get going quickly” and mobilize a search process to find his replacement.

Entwistle, a Cape Elizabeth native, has been Scarborough’s school chief since 2011. He was previously superintendent of the Falmouth School Department, assistant superintendent in School Administrative District 28 in Camden and superintendent of Belmont Public Schools in Massachusetts. Last December, he was a candidate and unsuccessful finalist for the superintendent’s job in Lexington, Massachusetts. 

In a press release last Friday, Board of Education Chairwoman Donna Beeley said Entwistle has “provided outstanding leadership to Scarborough schools for the past five years.”

“He’s led the work of engaging our whole community in an effort to reflect on their work, engage in small learning communities and utilize well-recognized professional data and analysis to guide improvement in teaching and learning,” Beeley said.

The Board of Education has not begun the process of finding Entwistle’s replacement, Beeley said Monday. A special meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 15, when the board will go into executive session to begin discussing the process.

The formal search will likely start after the holiday season, Beeley said. She anticipates it will be about a four-month search process, which “will take us right into the spring time.” 

Alex Acquisto can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 106 or aacquisto@theforecaster.net. Follow Alex on Twitter: @AcquistoA. 

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