AUGUSTA – Three high school students have been chosen as the winners of the Maine Community College System’s “A Journey into Writing” contest and named 2012 Governor’s Young Writers of the Year. They are: Amanda Dickey and Brianna Housman, both juniors at Searsport District High School, and Gaelyn Lindauer, a junior at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish. The contest is open to all high school juniors and home-schooled students of the same age.
Governor LePage and Messalonskee High School students play with basketballs ejected by the school’s robotics team, “Infinite Loop,” which participated in the FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis in April.
The following is a news release from the Office of Gov. Paul LePage.
AUGUSTA – Science, robots and the students who designed them took center stage Tuesday at the State House as Governor Paul LePage awarded the first ever Governor’s Promising STEM Youth Awards.
The recipients included three robotics teams that participated in a national competition, a student who will be representing Maine at the National Youth Science Camp and students from Falmouth who represented the state in a national science competition.
Kayleigh Bowen (no relation) shows Commissioner Bowen how she used a matrix to track her own progress in meeting learning standards at Gray-New Gloucester Middle School, one stop on a tour of schools and programs doing the work envisioned in the Department’s strategic plan.
GRAY – Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen is on the road again. But this time, instead of gathering information to develop a strategic plan as he did last spring, he’s sharing the results of that work.
Bowen visited schools and programs Friday as a way to showcase the Maine Department of Education’s strategic plan, developed with the input of hundreds of teachers, administrators, parents, students, taxpayers and others he met with on a “listening tour” last year. Bowen unveiled the plan in January, but said he hadn’t been able to share it yet due to the work of the legislative session, which officially ended this week.
“What we’re talking about here is how do we get the best return on our investment in education,” Bowen said. “We spend more money on K-12 education in Maine than any other program – we’ve got a vision and a strategic plan built on the best thinking of many, many people, and we think it’s going to help our kids graduate better prepared for success in college and in the work place. That’s good for them and it’s good for Maine’s economy.”
ORONO – What do you get when you put 1,000 students with laptops in the Collins Center for the Arts at the University of Maine in Orono? Music, literally.
At this year’s Maine Learning Technology Initiative Student Conference at the University of Maine on Thursday, students learned about innovative ways they can use their state-issued laptops.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this release contained the wrong LD number and linked to the wrong bill for the second item below, LD 1779. It has been corrected.
Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen issued the following statement Thursday following legislative approval on Wednesday of several key education bills, including: LD 1422, which requires that the state’s public schools transition to a proficiency-based diploma; LD 1779, which moves Maine career and technical education programs toward the full adoption of national industry standards; and LD 1865, which makes it easier for students to access career and technical education courses.
The following is a news release from the Maine Charter School Commission.
AUGUSTA – Nine groups informed the Maine Charter School Commission by Wednesday’s deadline that they plan to submit applications to open public charter schools. Seven of the groups hope to open a school this fall, one in fall 2013, and one is considering both options.
But NAEP results still point to need for more rigorous standards, commissioner says
AUGUSTA – Eighth graders in Maine scored higher than much of the nation in the most recent national science test, the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress, and the state was one of only 16 to show improvement since 2009.
Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen issued the following statement Tuesday in response to the Maine Charter School Commission’s announcement that it is accepting applications from potential charter school operators:
The following is a news release from the Maine Charter School Commission.
AUGUSTA – The Maine Charter School Commission announced Tuesday it will accept applications from potential charter school operators who hope to open schools for the 2012-13 school year.
AUGUSTA – Five teachers have been named semi-finalists in the 2013 Maine Teacher of the Year selection process. A distinguished panel of teachers, principals and business community members made the selections last week.
Maine DOE Newsroom 