The Maine Association of Special Education Directors has chosen Patti Dyer of Portland Public Schools as the Special Education Support Person of the Year. She was honored at the group’s annual awards banquet in Bangor.
Continue reading “Portland Public Schools’ Patti Dyer wins special education award”
AUGUSTA – As Governor Paul R. LePage continues to review the upcoming two-year budget, which was delivered to him late last week, he has discovered a disturbing trend of cuts to education. The budget reflects a slashing by the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee of supports for existing programs proven to prepare Maine youth for success in college and their careers and some innovative new ones.
That committee cut a total of $18.4 million proposed by the Department of Education and Governor LePage, including reducing funding over the next two years for Jobs for Maine’s Graduates by $600,000 and the Aspiration program– which raises education aspirations by allowing students to take college courses at a reduced rate – by $1.2 million.
Continue reading “Legislative budget misses opportunity to support students”
School may be already out, but the Legislature isn’t just yet.
Last week, the Appropriations Committee cut $18.4 million in targeted funding Maine DOE and the Governor had proposed in the next biennial budget that would have supported improvement and innovation in our schools. Included in those cuts was $3 million specifically for school improvement, funding which several districts have already expressed an interest in receiving.
In accordance with Public Law 2013, Chapter 1, $18.5 million of the June 2013 State school subsidy payment has been deferred until after July 1. School administrative units (SAUs) should record the deferred portion as an accounts receivable.
Continue reading “June 2013 State school subsidy payment deferred”
The June subsidy checks for General Purpose Aid for Local Schools will reflect additional adjustments for MaineCare Seed payments paid by Maine DOE on behalf of school administrative units (SAUs) for the following:
Continue reading “Review MaineCare Seed payment adjustment reports by July 12”
Maine DOE will provide evidence-based autism team training during the 2013-14 academic year for 15 school-based teams that represent educators working with children with autism. Members of the teams should include general and special educators, related services staff and general and special education administrators.
Continue reading “Opportunity to attend evidence-based autism training”
Kevin Mallory, the Portland Public Schools’ transportation director, has won a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in reducing pollution from the district’s school bus fleet and raising awareness about the benefits of greener school transportation. The award will be presented on June 26 in a ceremony in Boston.
AUGUSTA – For the first time since the Maine Learning Technology Initiative began in 2002, schools have made a choice in the solutions they will use for 21st century teaching and learning.
This fall, 39,457 students and educators will start using Apple’s iPad tablet ($266 per year, per seat with network), followed by 24,128 using Apple’s MacBook Air laptop ($319 per year, per seat with network) and 5,474 using the HP ProBook 4440 laptop which runs Microsoft Windows 7 ($286 per year, per seat with network).
Continue reading “Schools embrace first chance for choice of learning technology”
UPDATE: The application deadline has been extended to Aug. 23.
K–12 and higher education administrators, school leaders and other education decision-makers actively seeking to develop new and expanded Chinese programs are invited to attend the 2013 Chinese Bridge Delegation — a one-week trip to China hosted by Hanban. The trip, scheduled for Nov. 6-14, will focus on school visits, cultural activities and educational workshops with the aim of helping attendees start and expand their at-home Chinese language and culture programs.
Continue reading “Expand Maine’s Chinese language and culture programs”
We continue to get positive feedback on the Data Warehouse we unveiled last month in conjunction with the Maine School Performance Grading System. Educators and administrators like having multiple years of their key data – including individual student growth models – in one place, and that they can export it to use and share. The also appreciate the ability to run comparisons of like schools and districts to determine best practices and opportunities for collaboration.
Continue reading “Data Warehouse proving valuable new resource”
Maine DOE Newsroom 