Lynn Snow, a fifth grade literacy and science teacher at Thomaston Grammar School, along with seven other teachers from around the country, has been selected as one of the the 2020 National Excellence in Teaching about Agriculture Award winners.

The National Agriculture in the Classroom Organization (NAITCO), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Farm Credit partner each year to honor teachers in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade from around the country for the innovative ways they use agricultural concepts to teach reading, writing, math, science, social studies, STEM, STEAM and more.

“These teachers are great examples of how effective agricultural concepts can be in delivering important reading, writing, math, nutrition, science and social studies lessons to students,” said Dr. Scott Angle, director of USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which provides federal leadership and annual funding for NAITC. “The real-life connections teachers make by using items students use every day resonates with students.”

Lynn Snow ‘opens’ Common Ground Garden Seed Co. each spring. Students are involved in every aspect of the company beginning with applications and interviews to determine the jobs they will perform in packaging, marketing and managing the sale of bulk seeds to raise funds for the school garden.

Along with the other educators, Lynn will be honored at the 2020 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference “Agriculture Elevated” June 24-26 at the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah. Read the full press release from this announcement here, including a listing of the other educators being honored.

To learn more about NAITCO, please visit http://www.agclassroom.org.

Veazie Community School, a public PreK-8 school that currently serves 146 students has received an incredible gift from a major retailer. Music teacher Mike Arell received an e-mail in February from Rachel Stelline, Manager of the Bangor Walmart Supercenter. It stated that the Veazie Community School music program would be receiving a $30,000 grant from Walmart Corporation. When he saw the amount, Arell thought that the message was too good to be true. To his great surprise, the information, including the amount, was all accurate.

At the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, Superintendent Matthew Cyr and Arell had discussed ways to expand Veazie’s music program. This meant a particular focus on having enough high quality instruments and equipment so that interested students could participate fully in music ensembles, whether they owned an instrument or not . Cyr and Arell began to reach out to community members, businesses, and media outlets. Their hope was that local amateur musicians would remember how important music has been in their lives and pay it forward by giving the gift of an instrument to a student in need.

The school’s message moved beyond the greater Bangor area and then went national. By the beginning of December, Veazie Community School had received 35 donated  instruments and other musical equipment. Caring people from Maine, as well as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Illinois, Michigan, Utah, and Colorado, sent donations to the school. Many others that did not have instruments, but wanted to contribute, mailed in monetary donations that totaled about $2,000. Students and staff were overwhelmed to learn that people hundreds or thousands of miles away that had never even heard of Veazie Community School were willing to give because they cared about children and knew the importance of learning music.

Concurrently, Arell had applied for various music program grants. In October, after an
application process and interview, Veazie Community School was awarded $1,000 as a
community grant from Bangor Walmart Supercenter. This was a larger grant than Arell had anticipated and the students were very excited and thankful.

What Arell did not know was that after the local Walmart grant had been awarded, Walmart Corporation noticed the media coverage that Veazie’s instrument drive was receiving, and authorized an additional grant of $30,000. This substantial grant is the first time that Bangor Walmart Supercenter has presented such a major award. Veazie Community School is the only school in the state to receive this large an amount from any Walmart store this year.

2019-2020 has been an exciting year for Veazie Community School. In December, the school was recognized as a Blue Ribbon Lighthouse School. For the music program in particular, interest in ensembles has grown. About 70% of all 3rd-8th grade students choose to participate in Band class and about 50% of all 6th-8th grade students participate in Chorus class. The students’ enthusiasm for creating music and for learning is contagious.

The large grant from Walmart will allow the Veazie music program to continue to bring high quality musical experiences to all students and to help foster lifelong appreciation for music learning. This significant award will contribute to the goal of Veazie’s students, staff, and administration—to create a school culture of musical achievement. Veazie Community School is a small school with a big heart and the school’s heartbeat comes from its passionate music students that now have even more opportunities.

This article was submitted by Matthew Cyr, Superintendent of Schools & Principal at Veazie Community School as part of the Maine Schools Sharing Success Campaign. To submit a story or an idea email it to Rachel Paling at rachel.paling@maine.gov.

Young women from Westbrook High School (WHS) gathered in the WHS Library on March 10^th to hear a very important message from the Westbrook Women’s Club, the Westbrook City Clerk’s Office, and from female educators and role models working in their school: exercise your right to vote.

WHS Art Teacher Debra Bickford, WHS Librarian Beth Andersen, and WSH Assistant Principal Wendy Harvey hosted interested students in the library for a presentation about Women’s Suffrage as an homage to Maine’s Bicentennial celebration. The event is one of many Bicentennial related activities that Westbrook School Department has brought to students throughout the week.

Westbrook Women’s Club getting their picture taken by WHS Newspaper.

Dressed in the attire that women would have worn as they marched for Women’s Suffrage in the early 1900s, ladies from the Westbrook Women’s Club shared the history of women’s struggle and eventual success at gaining the right to vote in the United States. All of the adults in the room took the opportunity to stress the importance of this movement by sharing the ongoing struggles and triumphs experienced by women in Maine, all over the country, and around the world through the years and continuing to this day as women continue to work toward equality.

Westbrook Women’s Club

Debra Bickford, WHS Art Teacher

Angela Holmes from the Westbrook City Clerk’s office

While ladies from the Westbrook Women’s Club talked about having to prove they were literate in order to vote right here in Maine several decades ago, other women shared examples of gaining equal access to athletics as female students, and also referenced the on-going struggle for equal pay. All shared as examples of why it is so important for young women to exercise their right to vote.

“Having a voice in this country is something that we can’t take for granted,” said WHS Librarian Beth Andersen.

As part of the event, WHS Art Teacher Debra Bickford helped coordinate WHS Honor Society students as they put an artistic spin on artwork from the era.

Representatives from Westbrook City Clerk’s Office were also at the event and shared information about how to register to vote, including when young adults can register or pre-register to vote, and to not be afraid to ask questions about the process when the time comes to go down to the voting booth.

“Don’t think that your vote doesn’t matter,” said WHS Assistant Principal Wendy Harvey. “If not for your self than for generations of women to come,” she added.

In addition to the Women’s Suffrage event at Westbrook High School, the students have also been engaged in Maine themed games of Jeopardy, a Maine themed bracket where students vote on food items and other Maine related items to pick an icon that best represents the state, they plan to host Maine Comedian Tim Sample this week, and even the Middle School has adopted a Maine theme to their annual Spirit Week.