Media Release: Nominations Sought for 2020 Teacher of the Year

AUGUSTA – As part of the Maine Department of Education’s ongoing efforts to highlight Maine’s outstanding teachers, nominations are now open for the 2019 County Teachers of the Year and 2020 Teacher of the Year. Members of the public are encouraged to nominate educators who demonstrate a commitment to excellence and nurturing the achievement of all students.

Nominations can be made through the Maine Teacher of the Year Website starting today, January 4, 2019 and will be open through Feb. 4, 2019.

To be considered, a teacher must:

hold the appropriate professional certification for the position,
be employed by a Maine public school – including a public charter school or publicly-supported secondary school,
be actively teaching students at least 50% of full-time at the time of nomination and during the year of recognition, and
have a minimum of five years teaching, three of which are in Maine.

The eventual winner serves as an advocate for teachers, students, and the efforts underway in Maine’s public schools to prepare students for success in college, career and civic life.

Maine’s recently named 2019 Teacher of the Year, Joseph Hennessey, an English teacher at Piscataquis Community High School in Guilford, was selected from over 300 entries and included recognition as the 2018 Piscataquis County Teacher of the Year. In addition to Hennessey, the other 2019 state finalists include Connie Russell, a teacher at Mabel I. Wilson School and 2018 Cumberland County Teacher of the Year, and Shana Goodall, a teacher at Orono High School and the 2018 Penobscot County Teacher of the Year.

The 2020 Maine Teacher of the Year will be selected from the 16 county honorees. The field will be narrowed to eight semi-finalists and then three state finalists before the ultimate winner is announced by Maine’s Education Commissioner at a surprise school assembly in the fall.

The Maine Teacher of the Year program is administered by Educate Maine, a business-led organization whose mission is to champion college, career readiness, and increased education attainment. Funding is provided by Bangor Savings Bank, Dead River Co., Geiger, Hannaford, the Maine Lottery, and Pratt & Whitney with support from the State Board of Education and the Maine State Teacher of the Year Association.

The Teacher of the Year program is no cost to taxpayers. Bangor Savings Bank reimburses the winning educator’s school district for the cost of substitutes while the Teacher of the Year is out of the classroom on their official duties, which includes travel throughout the state, a week at NASA Space Camp and a visit to the White House.

For more information about the Maine Teacher of the Year program, visit the Maine Department of Education website.

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Media Contact: Rachel Paling, Maine DOE Director of Communications, r achel.paling@maine.gov

MEDIA ADVISORY: Maine DOE to Host Presentation About ESSA & School Report Cards

The School Report Cards are scheduled to be released to the public at the end of December.

WHAT:
The Maine Department of Education (DOE) would like to invite the media to attend a presentation about the details of Maine’s Model of School Support under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which includes the release of the new, user-friendly, public Report Cards later this month.

WHEN:
Monday, December 10, 2018 from 9:00am – 12:00pm

WHERE:
Cross Office Building, 111 Sewell Street, Augusta, Maine, Room 500
Live Stream Link: https://zoom.us/j/867836618 (this will be recorded)

AGENDA:

Opening comments from Commissioner Robert G. Hasson Jr.
Overview of Maine’s Model of School Support (1 hour)
- Overview of Indicators
- Overview of School Support
- Questions & Answer session
Overview of Maine’s Report Cards* (1 hour)
- New format for report card
- Walk through of the Report Cards
- Questions & Answer session

*For the 12/10/18 presentations, the Report Cards will be displayed with sample data. The public Report Cards, with school data for each public school in Maine, will not be released until the end of December.

For further information please contact Maine DOE Director of Communications, Rachel Paling at rachel.paling@maine.gov.

PRESS RELEASE: Maine DOE Awarded $2.88M Grant to Support School Emergency Operations Plan Initiative

Update: Schools will receive an invitation from the Department to participate in grant activities this spring.

The Maine Department of Education has been awarded a 5-year grant from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education. The funding will go towards an initiative called Maine Grant for School Emergency Management aimed at helping Maine schools by providing training and technical assistance in the development and implementation of high-quality school emergency operations plans (EOPS).

This project is grounded in the belief that multihazard emergency planning for schools helps schools and communities prepare for, respond to, and recover from critical incidents. The Maine Grant for School Emergency Management project is the next step of work that began with a Maine School Security Report that was initiated by the Maine Legislature.

The primary goals of the Maine Grant for School Emergency Management project are to:

Provide schools, especially those identified as high need in rural areas, with high-quality EOP training at no cost.
Ensure that local educational agencies have access at no cost to a new customizable EOP template that can be easily updated and includes technical guidance.
Provide high-quality EOP technical assistance clinics at no cost that will be delivered to develop a team of education sector professionals who are committed to work with schools.

The grant allocation is over five years:

Year 1: $614,773
Year 2: $567,920
Year 3: $567,920
Year 4: $567,920
Year 5: $567,920
Grant Total: $2,886,453

The grant activities, as awarded, are one hundred percent federally funded. No project costs will be financed by non-governmental sources.

The Department of Education takes school safety, security, emergency management, and preparedness seriously and is continually taking steps to improve it.

Further questions and inquiries can be send to Pat Hinckley, Maine DOE Transportation and Facilities Administrator at pat.hinckley@maine.gov.

MEDIA RELEASE: Maine DOE Celebrates Educational Support Professionals Day

In celebration of Educational Support Professionals Day, the Maine Department of Education would like to thank and congratulate the tens of thousands of educational support professionals working in Maine’s public schools.

Educational Support Professionals Day is held the Wednesday during American Education Week each year in November. The day celebrates and honors the significant contributions that school support staff make in public schools every day.

Education support professionals include education technicians, bus drivers, security guards, school nurses, facilities staff, office assistants and more. They drive students to school, clean classrooms and hallways, bandage scraped knees, and prepare and cook meals, among many other things. They are often the first to arrive at school and the last to leave.

We hope that schools state-wide will share in thanking and congratulating education support professionals for everything that they do to support students, schools, and communities throughout Maine.

MEDIA RELEASE: Maine DOE Releases 2017/2018 Education Assessment Results

The Maine Department of Education has released the 2017-2018 Maine Education Assessment (MEA) results in the content areas of mathematics, English language arts/literacy, and science.

The Department would like to thank schools, districts, and community members for their continued patience while an additional validation was completed after the initial delay in releasing the 2017/2018 results.

“This year the Department has three years of data from the same assessments which will allow for measurement across multiple years,” said Maine Department of Education Commissioner Robert G. Hasson, Jr. “The new trend lines will assist the Department in determining where support is needed to help increase student achievement across the state.”

The public results can be viewed by school or district and by student group, including grade level groups, in the Maine Assessment and Accountability Reporting System (MAARS).

MEDIA RELEASE: Maine DOE to Recognize Bilingual Students Upon Graduation

Maine Department of Education makes Seal of Biliteracy available to all qualifying students

During a special announcement at the Maine State House on October 29, 2018, Commissioner Robert G. Hasson, Jr of the Maine Department of Education announced a new opportunity called the Seal of Biliteracy that will be available to qualifying students upon graduation, starting in June of 2019.

The Seal of Biliteracy is an award given at graduation in recognition of students who have studied and attained a high degree of skill in English and at least one other language by high school graduation. For the first time, Maine will be offering all students an opportunity to graduate with the Seal in June 2019. The Seal seeks to encourage students to pursue biliteracy, recognizes the positive cognitive and academic benefits of being bilingual, and can serve as evidence of academic and workplace readiness.

There are two pathways to earn the Seal of Biliteracy. To qualify, all students must maintain a high degree of skill in their first language. Students, whose first language is English, can earn the Seal by attaining a high degree of skill in another language. Students whose first language is not English, can earn the Seal by attaining a high degree of skill in English.

In previous years, the Seal of Biliteracy has been offered to students in Portland Public Schools thanks to the work of Carlos Gomez, Director of Language Development. This Department of Education initiative will provide the opportunity to every student in Maine. The Seal of Biliteracy started in California in 2008 and is now offered by 32 states and the District of Columbia.

Earning the Seal of Biliteracy comes with tangible academic and workplace benefits for students. Those students who choose to pursue post-secondary education can show the Seal of Biliteracy designation to select universities to earn college credit. For those students who choose to enter the workforce after graduation, the Seal brings potential employers attention to the additional work ready skills they possess.

For more information please visit the Maine Department of Education website.

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MEDIA RELEASE: Piscataquis Community High School Teacher Named Maine 2019 Teacher of the Year

Guilford, Maine – In an all-school assembly today at Piscataquis Community High School, Maine Department of Education Commissioner Robert G. Hasson, Jr. named English teacher Joseph Hennessey Maine’s 2019 Teacher of the Year.

Hennessey was selected earlier this year as the 2018 Piscataquis County Teacher of the Year. He began his teaching career in 2012 and has held teaching positions as both an English teacher and a teacher for at-risk youth ever since. He specializes in English literature and composition and has taught speech and debate as well. In his current position at Piscataquis Community High School, Hennessey has implemented a college prep, literature based interdisciplinary course that focuses on students’ interests and aims to prepare them for life after graduation.

“Mr. Hennessey is a unique and highly effective teacher. His formal manner and personality combined with a dry sense of humor and setting high standards for his students, make him an icon of our school,” said Piscataquis Community High School Principal John Keane in a written statement nominating Hennessey for 2019 Teacher of the Year. “With only four years with us, he has become legendary amongst his students and their families. Watching him in class is truly watching a person who has honed his craft to perfection,” he added.

Hennessey was selected from more than 300 teachers who were nominated by a member of their community earlier this year. The Teacher of the Year Program is a year-long process that involves educator portfolio and resume submissions, interviews, oral presentations, and classroom visits made by a selection panel comprised of State Board of Education members, school administrators, Maine Department of Education staff, former Teachers of the Year, and other Maine business partners.

“Joe sees every student as a learner and an intellectual, and he truly strives to ensure that every student sees themselves that way too,” said Emily Gribben, Maine Department of Education Educator Effectiveness Coordinator and member of the 2019 Teacher of the Year Selection Panel. “I think it is also of note that not one student has failed his class and it is obviously not for lack of rigor,” she added.

As the 2019 Maine Teacher of the Year, Hennessey will travel throughout the state and country collaborating with other educators to support the efforts underway to prepare all students for college, work, and civic life. He is Maine’s representative in the National Teacher of the Year program which includes a national forum with other State Teachers of the Year, a week at a NASA Space Camp, and a visit to the White House.

The Maine Teacher of the Year program is administered by Educate Maine, a business-led advocacy organization, in partnership with the Maine Department of Education and the Maine State Board of Education. Funding for the program is generously provided by Bangor Savings Bank, Dead River, Geiger, Hannaford, Maine Lottery, and Pratt and Whitney.

For more information about the Maine Teacher of the Year program, visit www.mainetoy.org.

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PRESS RELEASE: Maine DOE Awarded $5.5M Grant to Support Student Mental Health Initiative

The Maine Department of Education has been awarded a 5-year grant (1.1 million per year) from SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The funding will go towards an initiative called Maine-AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education) aimed at helping Maine develop a comprehensive framework and infrastructure to support student mental health through effective state and local collaboration between education and health providers.

The project is grounded in a belief that strong implementation of evidence based universal positive behavior and social emotional learning supports coupled with universal behavioral health screening can help schools and communities focus intensive resources on students and families with the greatest need. The project also aims at developing coordinated support services at the school level so that school clinical capacity is maximized and well-articulated with the community’s therapeutic resources.

The framework for building a statewide comprehensive approach to student mental health will be gained through the experiences of an initial implementation with three school administrative units (SAU) which will serve as pilot sites for the initiative: Calais School Department, RSU 10, and RSU 40. They were selected prior to the application submission and are representative of the challenges faced by Maine’s school districts. Factors considered in the selection were geographic location, rate of uninsured children, data from the Maine Integrated Youth Health Survey (mental health and substance use), local employment of a licensed clinical social worker, and existing relationships with community mental health agencies.

The primary goals of Maine-AWARE are to:

1. Tier I: Ensure that all students have access to evidence-based social emotional learning (SEL) strategies, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), and screening for behavioral health needs.

2. Tier II: Provide students and families identified as at increased risk of negative academic and behavioral outcomes with team-based school and community supports, targeted interventions, and indicated mental health screening.

3. Tier III: Provide targeted, evidence-based clinical interventions to youth and families experiencing serious mental or behavioral health disorders.

4. Systems Building: Implement a comprehensive workforce and infrastructure development plan to provide technical assistance on evidence-based behavioral and mental health interventions and an effective statewide implementation strategy.

The Maine Department of Education will be working in collaboration with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child and Family Services on the Maine-AWARE Initiative.

MEDIA RELEASE: Maine Kids Rock Program Expands to 22 Additional Schools

The Maine Department of Education is pleased to announce that 22 school districts have been awarded $5,000 worth of modern band instruments, per school, as part of an expansion of the Maine Kids Rock Initiative.

“The Maine Kids Rock initiative has been a huge success so far,” said Maine Department of Education Commissioner, Robert G. Hasson, Jr. “We are thrilled to be expanding it by an additional 22 schools in Maine that would not otherwise be able to afford the instruments and specialized training.”

Currently in its second year, the Maine Kids Rock initiative is a program developed between the Maine Department of Education and national nonprofit, Little Kids Rock. Selected schools receive all of the instruments and resources necessary to run modern band programs, and partner teachers will receive extensive, direct coaching through Little Kids Rock’s training course, Modern Band 102, this fall.

To be eligible for participation in this initiative, districts must agree to offer modern band – taught by a certified music teacher – during the 2018-2019 school year. Priority is given to schools who serve 50% or more free or reduced eligible students.

The 22 additional schools join the initiative’s 10 pilot schools, which will continue in the program and receive frequent, targeted professional development. Partner teachers in the second-year cohort will attend a series of virtual professional learning sessions – offered monthly and covering a range of topics from hip-hop to singing in modern band – taught by expert staff from the Little Kids Rock organization. Additionally, all teachers receive free, unlimited access to the newest resources in Little Kids Rock’s online hub, Jam Zone. Next spring, new partner schools will be featured in a public performance at the second annual “Concert at the Capitol.”

The 22 members of this year’s cohort are:

Andover Elementary School (Andover School Department), Dr. Levesque Elementary School (MSAD 33), Easton High School (Easton School District), Glenburn School, Greenville Consolidated School, Hall-Dale High School (RSU 2), Leavitt Area High School (MSAD 52), Lee Elementary School (MSAD 30), Monmouth Middle School, Mattanawcook Junior High School (RSU 67), Miles Lane Elementary School (RSU 25), Molly Ockett Middle School (MSAD 72), Searsport Middle/High School (RSU 20), Sebasticook Valley Middle School (RSU 19), Sherwood Heights (Auburn School Department), Spruce Mountain Middle School (RSU 73), Walker Elementary School (RSU 3), Walton Elementary School (Auburn School Department), Washington Academy, Winslow Elementary School (AOS 92), Winslow Junior High School (AOS 92), and Woodland Consolidated School.

The 10 returning schools are:

Central Community Elementary School (RSU 64), Crescent Park and Woodstock Elementary Schools (RSU 44), East End Community School (Portland Public Schools), Hitchborn Middle School and Penobscot Valley High School (RSU 31), Houlton Middle/High School (RSU 29), Katahdin Elementary, Middle, and High Schools (RSU 50), Medway Middle School (Medway School Department), Meroby and Rumford Elementary Schools (RSU 10), Troy Howard Middle School (RSU 71), and Waterville Senior High School (AOS 92).

Rachel Paling, Maine DOE Director of Communication at rachel.paling@maine.gov

MEDIA RELEASE: National Blue Ribbon School Honors for Three Maine Schools

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today recognized three Maine schools as National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2018. The recognition is based on a school’s overall academic performance or progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups.

“I’m pleased to celebrate with you as your school is named a National Blue Ribbon School,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in a video message to the honorees. “We recognize and honor your important work in preparing students for successful careers and meaningful lives. Congratulations on your students’ accomplishments and for your extraordinary commitment to meeting their unique needs.”

“Congratulations to the students, educators and school leaders at Dr. Levesque Elementary School, Falmouth High School, and Yarmouth Elementary School for their unwaivering commitment to education and student achievement,” said Maine Department of Education Commissioner Robert G. Hasson, Jr.

The coveted National Blue Ribbon Schools award affirms the hard work of educators, families and communities in creating safe and welcoming schools where students master challenging and engaging content.

Now in its 36th year, the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program has bestowed recognition on more than 8,800 schools. On November 7 and 8, the Secretary and the Department of Education will celebrate with all honorees at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C.

All schools are honored in one of two performance categories, based on all student scores, subgroup student scores and graduation rates:

Exemplary High Performing Schools are among their state’s highest performing schools as measured by state assessments or nationally normed tests.
Exemplary Achievement Gap Closing Schools are among their state’s highest performing schools in closing achievement gaps between a school’s subgroups and all students over the past five years.

Up to 420 schools may be nominated each year. The Department invites National Blue Ribbon School nominations from the top education official in all states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Department of Defense Education Activity and the Bureau of Indian Education. Private schools are nominated by The Council for American Private Education (CAPE).

Photographs and brief descriptions of the 2018 National Blue Ribbon Schools are available at http://www.ed.gov/nationalblueribbonschools.

School Name and City