Freeport High School Principal Jen Gocco updated the RSU 5 School Board on last year’s goal progress and laid out three priorities for 2025–26: school‑wide instructional strategies focused on executive functioning, professional development for differentiated instruction and a push to reduce chronic absenteeism.

“Executive functioning skills…we started focusing on that last year as a whole faculty, and it's continued into this year,” Gocco said. She described a faculty book study and an expectation that every teacher will implement at least one executive‑functioning strategy in class this year. That work builds on an existing Freshman Horizontal Alignment Committee (F‑HAC) and ongoing common summative assessment work.

Gocco reported district and school data the board had requested: Freeport High’s AP outcomes remain strong, with 91.8% of test‑takers scoring a 3 or higher on AP exams in the most recent reporting period. On state three‑year (Maine 3) assessment measures for tenth graders, reading results met or slightly exceeded targets (fall to spring movement to ~78.4% at or above the 50th percentile); math met the school’s goal (spring at 67.1% vs. the 65% target).

The high school set a goal to reduce chronic absenteeism by 5 percentage points to get below 12% (post‑COVID highs earlier reached 21.5%). Gocco said the school will use targeted family communication, per‑period attendance alerts and new text‑message tools (ReachMyTeach) to notify parents quickly when a student is missing class. Assistant principals have attended attendance workshops to support the effort.

Gocco also described Freeport High’s three‑year JED Foundation partnership on mental‑health planning (this is the third year), expanded advisory time for academic support, and work by an equity team to identify and reduce hidden financial barriers to extracurricular participation (uniforms, travel, equipment). She told the board the school will merge its portrait‑of‑a‑graduate work with the district strategic plan to avoid duplicative effort.

Board members asked for more disaggregated participation data from planning sessions to ensure underrepresented groups were reached; Gocco said student survey and focus‑group responses form a strong portion of the engagement data but she did not yet have a disaggregated breakdown to share.

Gocco said the school will report back to the board with implementation evidence and metrics tied to the three priorities during the school year.