Category: Newsroom Articles

Brighter Days Story: Lillian from LearningWorks Afterschool

When the pandemic hit, a lot changed for 7 year old Lillian and her family. School, which she loved more than anything, all of the sudden meant learning on a screen at home. It also meant that her mom, a single parent, would be away at work each day, while Lillian and her older sister stayed at home to study. Lillian struggled to get used to this. One of her teachers could tell she needed some extra support and connection and recommended her family to the LearningWorks Afterschool program.

When she first signed in to Zoom, she kept her video turned off. “Mommy, I’m nervous! I don’t want them to see me!” she’d say over the phone when her Mom called to check on her. The program started with lots of fun games, and soon Lillian was laughing, had turned on her camera, and changed her Zoom name to “Lillian Rocks!” A few weeks into the program, her Mom said she noticed a new maturity in Lillian. She’d call home from work to make sure she was ready, and Lillian would be sitting at the table, eager to sign into Zoom early.

Her LearningWorks teachers, Ms. Molly and Mr. Matt, have become household names. Each week, Ms. Molly delivers a STEAM kit to Lillian’s doorstep. Oftentimes Lillian is waiting. The kit has art supplies as well as materials she’ll need for activities such as Wacky Science Wednesdays. Lillian features her favorite items from these kits on her desk in her room. She loves reading the instructions and knowing the plan for the week ahead of time. She has a special lab coat for her LW science experiments (such as making homemade slime) and her Mom says Lillian often wears the lab coat around the house, while teasing her older sister who is studying to become a doctor. She tells her, “You’re just studying with your books all the time, but I’m already a doctor, look at my coat!”

Lillian – LW AfterSchool // Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com
Lillian – LW AfterSchool // Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com
Lillian – LW AfterSchool // Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com
Lillian – LW AfterSchool // Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com
Lillian – LW AfterSchool // Photography by Molly Haley, mollyhaley.com

Her interest in science and math has skyrocketed this year through her lessons with LearningWorks. She’s begun to develop a critical and process-oriented mind — often very focused on the steps it takes to solve a math problem or discover a truth. “Some people just believe things right away — I want to understand how it actually works,” she says. Lillian’s mom has noticed how this way of thinking has translated to her experience of the pandemic and the rules around mask wearing and social distancing. Because Lillian genuinely understands the thinking behind these health & safety measures, she wholeheartedly follows them. LearningWorks has become a fun place for her to experiment, to connect with others, and to nurture her inquisitiveness. She’s begun to find the language and confidence to express her clear and discerning mind. “This program is special to me,” she says. She thinks it could be for other kids too. Her message to them: “Take a deep breath and tell yourself that you can do it. Then…do it!”

Information for this article was provided by LearningWorks Afterschool, a 21st Century Community Learning Center Program. Photos and story by Molly Haley.

York Adult Education Hosts Annual Celebration of Learning

York Adult Education held its annual celebration of learning on June 3, 2021 to honor all of their students’ accomplishments.  The students recognized were receiving diplomas, CNA certification, and Comptia A+ Academy certificates.  Also celebrating their success were students of English as a Second Language classes. Each student has worked hard for at least the past year, and some for as long as 5 years, attaining their goals. All of them had to juggle their efforts with jobs and families.

The students created a special video presentation, Dr. Seuss’ “Oh the Places You’ll Go.”

The Perseverance Award was given to Xue Zheng for logging over 400 hours of classes. This amazingly intelligent and hardworking woman earned her high school diploma in English, while learning the language, starting a restaurant, and raising a family.

In addition to the in-person attendees, some students were virtually present and for others the event was recorded (ceremony starts at 10:20). Family and friends, as well school staff members, York Schools’ Superintendent, and the director of Special Education attended to support the students.

Director of Adult Education, Lisa Robertson, bragged on all the students had overcome. “Let’s look at what it took for these learners to get here today. First of all, I’ll give a brief nod to COVID and how that changed the delivery of education.  For some, that was quite a deterrent to learning.  They needed an alternative.  Our instructors continued teaching classes live over video streaming, until in person classes could resume.  I am very proud of the quality of education that our teachers brought to each class.  COVID also brought other barriers to our learners – anxiety, loss of income, and to some, illness.  But they all persevered:

  • One built a motor powered bike to take her to work.
  • One served her community with 78 hours toward her Girl Scout Gold award, the highest award the Girl Scouts give
  • One started the foundations of an artist entrepreneurial enterprise with mini sculptures
  • One started a restaurant business, and kept it thriving through COVID closures
  • Two students had personal or family illness which disrupted their education in the 9th grade.  They both have amazing academic ability and are graduating today on time or before their peers.
  • Three got their driver’s license.
  • Three took college classes for high school credit, totaling over 100 credits combined.
  • All were working jobs this year.

Let’s give them all a round of applause.”  Director Robertson then shared about being “Opportunity Ready”. She encouraged volunteering, studying and networking to help one get what they want or need in life. Dave Herbein, of our York School Committee invented the five P’s of graduating: Plan, Persevere,Persistence, Purpose, Pride.  He talked about how all five were demonstrated by the graduates.

All of the “Pomp and Circumstance” was observed, from music, to caps and gowns, to flipping the tassels.  It was a fitting and lovely ceremony in York High’s Auditorium.

If you, or someone you know, would like to complete their high school diploma, gain skills to go on to college, or earn an industry recognized credential, check out York Adult Education Program offerings at our website, www.yorkadulteducation.org, or  give them a call at 363-7922.

To learn more about Adult Education Programming across Maine visit: https://www.maine.gov/doe/learning/adulted

Information for this article was provided by York Adult Education Program as part of the Maine Schools Sharing Success Campaign. To submit a story or an idea, email it to Rachel at rachel.paling@maine.gov.

FREE Virtual Summer Camp for Available for Maine Teens Through WAVES

The Maine Department of Education is excited to announce a FREE Virtual Summer Camp available to all Maine students entering grades 7-12. The camp will run Tuesday-Thursday, July 13- August 5. Brought to you by WAVES (Wilderness Activities and Virtual Engagement for Students), this virtual opportunity will connect and empower Maine teens from throughout the state around engaging activities and collaborative problem solving. The camp will host a variety of opportunities for students explore their worlds and their interests this summer.

See the schedule: WAVES Summer Camp Schedule

Save the Date and FAQ for more information

Register here for the WAVES Virtual Summer Camp!

For further questions and information contact WAVES Program Director Sarah Woog at sarah.woog@maine.gov.

MEDIA RELEASE: Mills Administration Updates COVID-19 School Health Advisory System

All counties remain green

Maine DHHS and CDC, in conjunction with Maine DOE, will now shift to updating the color-coded health advisory for in-person learning only as needed over the course of the summer

AUGUSTA — The Mills Administration today released an update to its color-coded Health Advisory System that classifies counties’ relative risk of COVID-19 transmission to assist schools as they continue with their efforts to deliver instruction and support students safely.

Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Maine CDC) assessed COVID-19 data and trends for all counties and released the following designations:

  • All counties remain green. All counties have a COVID-19 positivity rate below 5 percent, and the new case rate per 10,000 has fallen in nearly all counties.

These designations are made out of an abundance of caution and for the consideration of school administrative units in their decisions to deliver instruction. DHHS and Maine CDC continue to review evidence that indicates lower transmission of COVID-19 in schools compared to the general population.

The rate of new cases for school staff and students has fallen by nearly one-quarter since the update two weeks ago, to 30 per 10,000 over the last 30 days, about 21 percent lower than a new case rate of 38 per 10,000 for the general population during the same time period.

This continues to demonstrate that in-person learning in schools that follow public health precautions can be conducted safely, without increased transmission of COVID-19, when schools use proven health and safety protocols and resources.

The Health Advisory System categorizations are defined as follows:

  • RED: Categorization as “red” suggests that the county has a high risk of COVID-19 spread and that in-person instruction is not advisable.
  • YELLOW: Categorization as “yellow” suggests that that the county has an elevated risk of COVID-19 spread and that schools may consider additional precautions and/or hybrid instructional models to reduce the number of people in schools and classrooms at any one time.
  • GREEN: Categorization as “green” suggests that the county has a relatively low risk of COVID-19 spread and that schools may consider in-person instruction, as long as they are able to implement the required health and safety measures.  Schools in a “green” county may need to use hybrid instruction models if there is insufficient capacity or other factors (facilities, staffing, geography/transportation, etc.) that may prevent full implementation of the health and safety requirements.

The Health Advisory System reflects ongoing analysis of evolving data, and serves as one piece of information that school and district leaders can use to make decisions about how to deliver education during the school year. The qualitative and quantitative considerations and data used by the CDC in determining community transmission risk levels for schools can be located here: How County Risk Levels for Maine Schools are Determined.

Maine schools have been safely open since the fall by adhering to the six requirements for returning to in-person instruction and by following the protocols for identifying close contacts that are found in the Standard Operating Procedure for a positive case in schools, regardless of their county color designation.

Maine DHHS and CDC, in conjunction with Maine DOE,  will now shift to updating the color-coded health advisory for in-person learning  only as needed over the course of the summer.

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Governor Mills Signs Bill Focused on Student Career Development in Maine into Law

As the 130th Maine Legislature begins to conclude their work over the coming weeks, the Maine Department of Education (DOE) will provide brief updates to highlight recently passed legislation and pertinent programming updates.

Public Law, Chapter 75, An Act to Assist Students in Preparing for Opportunities to Live and Work in Maine was signed by Governor Mills on May 25, 2021. The DOE is thrilled to continue our ongoing work with our colleagues from the Maine Department of Labor’s Center for Workforce Research and Information, the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, and local educators to create meaningful resources to support the future success of Maine students.

Throughout the summer, the DOE will release information to support the understanding of statewide employment projections, career exploration, and extended learning opportunities. The resources will be aligned with the 2020 Maine Learning Results Life and Career Ready Standards and be developmentally appropriate for students in grades 6-12.

The Department is pleased to share the following resources:

The guidance documents are intended to support the development of student career aspirations and exploration articulated in the Strands B and C of the 2020 Maine Learning Results Life and Career Ready Standards. School Administrative Units (SAUs) are encouraged to adapt the documents to align with their local policies. For more information, please contact Maine DOE Life and Career Ready Education Specialist, Diana Doiron at diana.doiron@maine.gov.

 

Maine Biz: New Mainers Land Teller Jobs

The following article was found in Maine Biz, written by Renee Cordes.

Training program opens doors for immigrants.

In 2015 after Chis Mbalazamo arrived in Maine from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he opened an account at C Port Credit Union. He’s now a teller at C Port’s Riverside branch Portland, after graduation from the 12-week New Mainer Teller Training Program. It was launched in 2020 by Portland Adult Education in partnership with six financial institutions, including C Port.

Read the full article in Maine Biz

This article is part of the Maine Schools Sharing Success Campaign. To submit a story or an idea, email it to Rachel at rachel.paling@maine.gov.

Maine DOE to Host Focus Groups for New Educators

Are you a first or second year educator (teacher, administrator, education technician)?  If so, thank you–AND we would love to hear from you!

Please join us at one of our virtual New Educator Focus Groups (June 17 6:00 – 7:00 pm or June 23, 9:00 – 10:00 am). Upon registration, participants will receive a Zoom link.

This will be an opportunity for you to connect with other new educators throughout Maine, to share challenges and successes, and for us to celebrate you! As a new educator during these unprecedent school years, your experiences are invaluable and will help inform our ongoing educator recruitment and retention efforts! If you plan to attend, please complete and submit the registration form for the date that works best for you.

June 17th Focus Group
6:00 – 7:00 pm
Register here
Upon registration, participants will receive a zoom link.		 June 23rd Focus Group
9:00 – 10:00 am
Register here
Upon registration, participants will receive a zoom link.

Questions? Please contact Tamara Ranger: Tamara.Ranger@Maine.Gov or Emily Doughty at Emily.Doughty@Maine.Gov

End of School Year 20’-21’ Checklist for Completing Reports; June 11 Webinar Available

The Maine Educational Data Systems Team will be hosting a webinar to discuss the end of year reporting requirements in this notification on Friday June 11th from 10:00am to 12:00pm. Register here

The following checklist is designed to assist School Administrative Units (SAUs) with publicly funded students in completing required end of year reports.  The dates listed after each report are when the report is open for entry and due for certification, if required.

Synergy:  The following items are available in the Synergy Student Information System. Please visit the Synergy Instructions Helpdesk Page for Synergy codes to be used for the items below.

Enrollments

Update/End ALL Enrollments (done last):

Manual Student Enrollment Exit Instructions

Upload Student Enrollment Exit Instructions

  • DOE will NOT be automatically ending enrollments
  • Concurrent enrollment MUST be ended before the primary enrollment can be ended
  • All students will need to be exited on their actual last day of school. This may be verified using “Attending Student Report” in NEO> Student Reports.
  • June 30 should not be automatically populated for the last day of school.
  • Future exit dates that are more than 7 days out are not permitted in the system.
  • Ending a student’s enrollment will end Economic Status and Truancy – to avoid this, update Truancy records prior to ending enrollments
  • Ending enrollments will prevent you from manually updating Attendance Data. Once an enrollment has been ended, attendance data can only be modified by uploading the data.
  • Please ensure that you exit all your graduates accordingly
    • Only exit students who have met graduation requirements by the graduation date
      • For those who are expected to meet graduation requirements over the summer, leave the exit blank for now and there will be an opportunity for you to exit them later in the summer (by August 15)
    • Do NOT graduate students in non-high school grades (Pre-K, Kindergarten, Eighth Grade, etc.)
  • Please remember to exit your enrolled home instruction students back to home instruction at the end of the school year.

New enrollments will need to be uploaded/entered as well as special education information each school year.

Annual End of Year Reports and Certifications:

The following items are Annual Reports for the 2020/2021 school year. Instructions for these reports can be found here. 

The reports listed below are linked directly to its corresponding certification report in NEO

If you have questions about these reports, (i.e. what should be entered) please contact the subject specialist listed below:

If you have questions about accessing the reports, please call or email the helpdesk, 624-6896 or MEDMS.helpdesk@maine.gov

If you do not have credentials for Synergy or NEO, the district superintendent may grant access using the appropriate webform on the Helpdesk Page: Access Request Form

Maine Virtual Career Fair for High School Students Offers Dynamic, Professional Experience

Maine Community Coordinators Collaborative (Maine C3 ), in collaboration with the Association of Computer Technology Educators in Maine (ACTEM) and Educate Maine offered a unique opportunity for high school students across Maine, from Caribou to Kittery, to engage together in real-time with representatives from a wide swath of cross-sector Maine companies and nonprofit organizations.

During the Maine Virtual Career Fair, students self-selected from the 168 live-streamed sessions and learned about the unique job expectations, skills, and potential career pathways of different jobs in large and small Maine companies and nonprofit organizations.

For students, the ME Virtual Career Fair offered a window to feed their curiosity, aspirations, plans and actions towards a vision they have for themselves. For teachers who attended the sessions with their students, the ME Virtual Career Fair offered an opportunity to make direct connections among the learning targets in their classrooms across all content areas and the skills, understandings, and context of the job expectations and potential career pathways to the jobs.  For Maine companies and nonprofit organizations, the ME Virtual Career Fair provided an opportunity to make connections with students, be a part of building student aspirations, and offer examples of the value of living and working in Maine.

During the live-streamed sessions, students communicated with the presenters by typing their questions into a chat space. The 30 minute live-streamed sessions gave students ample time to deepen their understandings with follow-up questions. Maine C3 educators served as the moderator of the sessions by keeping the questions flowing and making connections. Presenters often shared their own career journeys to their current positions, sometimes surprising students in the way skills, knowledge, and experiences build and transfer across career clusters.

The ME Virtual Career Fair offered a dynamic, professional career exploration experience for Maine high school students to engage with companies and nonprofit organizations from across Maine and hear the thoughts and questions from other students. The concept for the virtual career fair grew out of a deep desire to create a statewide experience and offer all high school students the opportunity to explore a variety of career options together in real-time and see possibilities for their lives.  Maine C3 has created an experience worth repeating  and they are committed to making this an annual event.

For questions regarding Maine C3 and the 2021 ME Virtual Career Fair, contact Planning Committee  Co-Chairs, Samantha Brink at sbrink@sanford.org or Sheree Inman at inmansh@spsdme.org.

For questions regarding the Maine Learning Results Life and Career Ready standards contact Maine DOE Life and Career Ready Education Specialist, Diana Doiron at diana.doiron@maine.gov or 207-592-2128.

2021-2022 Leadership Development Opportunities- Information Session

Do you love being an educator in Maine? Is developing your own leadership capacity intriguing to you? Do you strive to ensure more equitable outcomes for your students? Do you thrive by learning with a diverse group of thoughtful and engaged educators? If so, please consider attending an information session coming to you from the Maine Department of Education to learn more about our year-long professional learning experiences for leaders in education.

Representatives from The Transformational Leaders’ Network and Maine’s Leadership Development Program will share more about these programs and answer any questions you may have. The session will take place virtually on June 7, 2021 starting at 3:15pm.

If you would like to attend, please email Emily Doughty (Emily.Doughty@Maine.gov) or Teri Peaslee (Teri.peaslee@maine.gov) for a registration link.

If you are interested, but unable to attend, we welcome the opportunity to meet with you directly as well.  Please feel free to reach out by August 1st to make alternative arrangements.

To learn more about these offerings, please visit the Maine LDP (Maine’s Leadership Development Program | Department of Education) and TLN (Transformational Leaders’ Network | Department of Education (maine.gov) websites.