New principal pledges outreach will continue

Newly hired MES Principal Doug Kilmister addresses the public last night. Below, Director of Students Services Scott Reuning gets a going-away card and gift. Reuning is leaving for a new job at #SAU 44. (Harrison Thorp photo)

MILTON - In response to one of his first questions after being installed as principal at Milton Elementary School, Doug Kilmister pledged to continue the school’s outreach to parents and the community.

It was what the School Board and parents who attended Wednesday’s meeting in the Nute Library conference room wanted to hear.

Kilmister, pronounced with a short “I” and the accent on the first syllable, will start his new duties as head of the nearly-300-student school on Monday.

The Milton School Board made the announcement after an executive session with the new principal soon after the regular meeting began.

Kilmister, 55, lives in Concord and said he will likely commute to his new job, having two daughters in middle and high school that he said would not be happy with leaving their friends.

Kilmister was born in New Hampton, but grew up in Concord and graduated from Concord High.

After receiving his bachelor’s in English at the University of New Hampshire, he did post-graduate work at Middlebury College in Vermont and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Kilmister spent his last five years as the principal at Pittsfield’s Elementary School.

Prior to that, he was an English teacher at Pittsfield Middle School for four years.

Kilmister said he was looking forward to his new job at MES and building on the bridges that have already begun to be built between the community and the school, vowing to continue the work of the popular Parents-Principal Advisory Council.

“I want to engage the community in the life of the school, so that other community members and parent know what’s going on,” he told The Lebanon Voice in an exclusive interview earlier in the day.

He also said he was looking forward to spending time in classrooms and getting a chance to see what kind of teaching is going on.

“I want to support the teachers, so they can give the best instruction they can,” he added.

Before working within the Pittsfield school system, Kilmister taught English at a private school in Colombia and also taught all over the country for the Outward Bound program.