Month: June 2011

Commissioner’s Update – June 30, 2011

Newsletter image
Click the image to view the fully formatted Commissioner's Update.

We crammed a lot into our 100th annual Maine School Superintendents’ Conference earlier this week.

The 175 people who attended were treated to six presentations about school transformation, an iPad demonstration from Apple, a talk about school bus refurbishment, and multiple visioning sessions.

It was hard work. But out of it came something we can use: The tenets of a vision for the education system we want to work toward in Maine. As I write in my blog this week, I left the superintendents’ conference believing that the Department of Education and our superintendents can be productive partners in this work.

This is the last Commissioner’s Update of the 2010-11 school year.

  • During the summer months, this publication will come out every other week. The next Commissioner’s Update will arrive in your inbox on July 14. We’ll resume our weekly publication schedule in late August.
  • With the dawn of a new fiscal year, we have many changes as new superintendents take charge and others change positions. If your e-mail address is changing, please update your subscription information to let us know.

Continue reading “Commissioner’s Update – June 30, 2011” →

LePage signs charter schools into law

The following is a press release sent by the office of Gov. Paul LePage.

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Contact: Adrienne Bennett (207) 287-2531

AUGUSTA, Maine – Governor Paul LePage signed on Wednesday the charter school bill that creates more educational options for students. LD 1553 allows for the formation of public charter schools in Maine for the first time.

Continue reading “LePage signs charter schools into law” →

At Yarmouth High, the environment is technology

In biology class, Yarmouth High School students plug digital microscopes into their laptops to record video of the organisms they’re observing. They can refer to that video later in the day, outside the classroom.

During the uprising that led to the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, students in a Yarmouth High School social studies class used their laptops to learn from the Twitter postings that were pivotal in ending Mubarak’s reign.

And when Yarmouth students need to study for a quiz, many of them make flash cards using an online tool known as Quizlet and share them with classmates.

Continue reading “At Yarmouth High, the environment is technology” →

In ‘ordinary’ district, standards-based transformation takes hold

When it comes to educational transformation, Victoria Burns prefers to think of her school district as ordinary.

“If we can do it, it’s something that can be translated to almost anyone,” said Burns, superintendent of School Administrative District 15, which serves Gray and New Gloucester.

Continue reading “In ‘ordinary’ district, standards-based transformation takes hold” →