More than a year after a coach was convicted of sexually exploiting and assaulting high school girls on the school basketball team, the Islesboro community and school are slowly mending. There is talk of resilience and recovery, and how to avoid it ever happening again. And, there remains bitterness about the breach of trust on this small island, with its year-round population of 600. Some residents say what happened remains a taboo topic of conversation, and they seek more accountability from school administrators.
The superintendent and the principal acknowledge the discord, and say, "give us a chance."
For the students, however, the halls at Islesboro Central School on a late winter day reflect none of that lingering turbulence. They make their way to lunch, or lean against bolstered benches in the library, reading and talking. Out of the windows of the former summer estate, which is home to one of the few schools in Maine with a magnet program, the steel-blue Penobscot Bay reaches toward the Camden Hills. It is an idyllic landscape, both indoors and outside. The music room is alive with instruments, labs are well-equipped, and classrooms are lined with books and posters reflecting a stimulating curriculum; downstairs in the gym, basketballs thump in relaxed noontime play.
[For more of this story, written by Lynda Clancy, go to http://www.penbaypilot.com/art...nity-talk-resi/67935]
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