Four years after contracting with nearby Hampden-based RSU 22 for superintendent and business office services, Veazie has hired a superintendent of its own.
Matthew Cyr, who has been principal at Veazie Community School since July of 2015, officially assumed his additional duties on July 1.
Cyr, who accepted the superintendent position in early May, said that combining that position with that of principal will save the town’s school department about $20,000 a year.
Veazie will continue, however, to contract with RSU 22 for business office services, RSU 22 Superintendent Rick Lyons, for whom Cyr was an intern, said earlier.
Veazie has experienced a number of school leadership and governing formats over the past two decades. In the mid-1990s, Veazie belonged to Union 87 along with Orono.
In 2009, however, the town voted to form a new district, Riverside Regional School Unit, with Orono and Glenburn, as a result of the state’s push toward school consolidation and in part in the hope of saving money.
That partnership broke up after Veazie and Glenburn residents voted to withdraw from Riverside RSU in 2012, leaving Orono as its only member.
The reasons for the breakup was heartburn over cost-sharing and a desire to regain control over location education. Elected officials from Veazie and Glenburn also balked at the RSU’s system of weighted votes.
In addition to his work in Veazie schools, Cyr is an adjunct faculty member in the University of Maine’s College of Education and Human Development.
He is a graduate of the University of Maine at Fort Kent, where he graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s in education with minors in math, biology and social sciences. He earned a master’s in instructional technology from the UMaine in 2003, and a certificate of advanced studies in education, also from UMaine, in 2005
Before he was hired in Veazie, Cyr served as assistant principal at Old Town Elementary School and taught in Old Town and Howland elementary and middle schools.