District and school administrators and educators from thirty-six districts and education entities in rural Maine convened at Jeff’s Catering in Bangor recently for the first ever Rural Maine Attendance Summit organized by RSU 74 Superintendent Mike Tracy. After looking at his own data submitted to the Maine Department of Education last spring, he found that some of the students in his district were out of school enough to be defined as chronically absent. In his efforts to be proactive about the issue, Tracy looked to available resources only to find that they were mostly geared towards urban school districts. That’s when he began working on plans for the rural attendance summit.

With the collective understanding that small rural school districts must approach things differently than bigger urban school districts, the summit aimed to help generate more tools, and allow for the exchanging of ideas regarding the growing issues that are keeping kids from accessing school in rural Maine.

The day long summit provided participants with the opportunity to hear from key note speakers, Emanuel Pariser from the MeANS school, and Britney Ray from Washington County’s TREE program – Transforming Rural Experiences in Education. Each speaker provided information and expertise about working with students and parents who may be experiencing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and/or childhood trauma. In addition, district officials could share specific issues in their own communities, collaborate on solutions that were working, and pose specific questions to a panel of experts.

Rural Maine School Districts with less than 1,000 students and other stakeholders were invited to attend. In addition to host district RSU 74, others in attendance were Goodwill Hinckley, MSAD 54, RSU 68, Otis School Department, RSU 93, RSU 89, AOS 94, RSU 73, MSAD 41, Snow Pond, RSU 84/MSAD 14, MSAD 37, Union 69, RSU 26, RSU 19, Medway, MSAD 20, RSU 25, Cornville, RSU 10, MSSA, Sunrise Country School, RSU 67, AOS 91, MSAD 59, MSAD 46, CSD 13, Athens, MSAD 70, ME Charter School, UMF, AOS 96, MSAD 30, AOS 90, and Calais.

Panelists included Martha Kempe, Head of Schools at Wayfinder Schools; Sue Reed, Maine DOE Early Childhood Specialist; Ashley Cirone and Laura Thomas, TREE Program Coaches; Catharine Biddle, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at UMaine and researcher for the TREE Program; and Susan Lieberman with Count ME. They fielded audience questions about strategies that involve parent and student voice, treatment options that may not typically be found schools, and ways to make school a priority for students and their families. Members of Maine DOE’s Data team were also on hand to answer questions about reporting requirements and to learn more about the needs of rural schools when reporting attendance data to the state.

The day included workshop time for attendees to meet with other districts and share ideas that were working in their schools, and closed with an opportunity for attendees to work with the people from their own district to work on a plan moving forward.

School officials left with various action plans that included strategies involving better outreach and partnerships with parents, home visits, team approaches and/or committee groups to research and take action, attendance awards and incentives, hiring on social workers and school resource officers, early-day or before school programing that kids won’t want to miss, and working more closely with the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

For more information and resources visit https://www.ruralmaineattendance.com/.

Submitted by Ryan McDonald, Summer Programs Director and Public Relations Coordinator at Maine School of Science and Mathematics

Maine School of Science and Mathematics (MSSM) once again earned first place in the 43rd Annual Maine State Math Meet for Maine Association of Math Leagues (MAML) held on Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019. MSSM scored 846 points out of a possible 920 and had nine students earning medals. MSSM junior James Hawkes was recognized as top scorer in the state during the regular season. Hawkes said this year was, “filled with difficult questions. I appreciate the time and effort put in by the math teachers, who provided us with practice and taught us what we needed to know for each meet.”

In Part One, Individual Round, all students do the same six sets of math problems and scores are tallied individually and summed for the team. Ten students compete for up to 72 points each for a maximum score of 720 with MSSM scoring 667 points. In Part Two, Relay Round, each school is split into two teams and complete problems dependent on the other half of the team to provide a partial answer. MSSM earned an 87 out of 100 possible points in the Relay Round. In Part Three, Team Round, there are two rounds with 8 questions and a possible score of 50 points per round. MSSM scored a 92 out of possible 100 points.

Ethan Winters (Gardiner) and James Hawkes (Portland) earned all possible 72 points resulting in gold medals for grades 12 and 11, respectively. Other Seniors to medal were Sandy Kweon (Republic of South Korea) in 5th place and George Johnson (Kennebunk) in 11th. Minjin Lee (Republic of South Korea), earned a Silver; Jordan Theriault (Caribou), a Bronze; Christian Chagnon (Eliot), 4th; and Oleksii Nikanov (Ukraine), tied for 5th. Madison Albert (North Yarmouth), the only sophomore on the team, earned a Silver in her grade category.

The next step for the MSSM Math Team will be by invitation to compete in the American Regions Mathematics League (ARML). ARML is a mathematics competition simultaneously held at four locations around the United States. MSSM will join students who excel in mathematics from high schools in the State of Maine from May 30th to June 2nd at Penn State while other teams compete at the University of Las Vegas, University of Iowa, and University of Georgia. ARML has been called the “World Series of Mathematics Competitions” with 15-member teams representing large geographic regions; roughly 2,000 students compete at this event nationwide.

National Reading Month drew a special visit from CMP President Doug Herling and Maine Author Patty Farrin to Lisbon Community School last month. Each year CMP donates a children’s book to local Maine schools and municipal libraries and this year, Herling selected The Teacup Cafe, written by Maine author Farrin, and illustrated by Hilary Davis.  In a special return to his hometown Herling read The Teacup Cafe, to the pre-school class on March 26.

Below are some images from the visit.