Third, fourth, and fifth graders from Falmouth Elementary school got to practice their math skills and give back to the community all at once during a worldly event that took place earlier this month outside the school.

Parent, World of Change Founder, and Chief Change Maker, Matt Hoidal brought a change truck to the Falmouth Elementary School so that students could come out and donate couch change to some local causes of their choosing. The truck, designed locally, was equipped with six slots entitled, Education, Animals and Nature, Health, Play, Housing, and Food where loose coins and dollar bills could be deposited by students and then weighed for an estimated amount. The activity provided them with a chance to give back to the community with a service learning activity, in addition to providing an opportunity to practice using monetary amounts and measurements.

“This is an incredible opportunity for our children to come together and our community to come together,” said Falmouth Elementary School Principal, Gloria Noyes.

100% of all funds collected will be disbursed according to student choice. Below is a breakdown by focus area (according to how the students decided), and the amount donated:

• Play: $227.94 (to fund swim lessons for four kids)
• Housing: $332.41 (to fund three-four beds for kids who are sleeping on the floor)
• Food: $477.09 (to fund 1,908 meals for kids in need)
• Education: $273.21 (to fund 12 backpacks filled with books for kids in need)
• Animals & Nature: $454.79 (to fund pet therapy programs and summer camperships for kids in need)
• Health: $492.74 (to fund groceries and fuel assistance for families of kids with cancer)

“With nearly 20,000 coins collected, this is true testament to the power of change,” said Matt Hoidal.

Below is a video of the event, done by Bull Dog Media of Maine, which features comments from Falmouth Elementary School Principal,Gloria Noyes.

Below are some images from the coin drop:

On Monday, May 6, ten students from the Bonny Eagle School District made a trip to the University of Southern Maine to participate in a session at the 4th Annual Assessment for Learning & Leading Conference.

The session, “Assessment for Learning: Student Involvement and Voice” provided participants with explanations and examples of high-impact instructional strategies, and an opportunity to talk with instructional coaches and students about their experiences related to the research-based practices.

The session, led by Kirsten Gould and Kate Dumont, Assessment for Learning Coaches from MSAD 6, focused on student perspectives related to the new practices and encouraged participants to think about how teacher clarity and formative assessment can support students’ academic and emotional growth.

During the panel portion of the session, teachers mingled with students to have conversations and ask questions about student experiences and perspectives with the practice. The students, ranging from first through twelfth grade, shared concrete examples that illustrate how their teachers clarify the learning expectations and help students build self-efficacy through tracking progress, self-assessment, and goal-setting.

Submitted by Anne-Marie D’Amico, choir teacher at Great Salt Bay (GSB) Community School in AOS 93. The article was written as part of the Lincoln County Artsbeat of the Lincoln County News. Photo credit: Lincoln County News.

Great Salt Bay (GSB) Community School choir recently completed a project directed by teacher Anne-Marie D’Amico titled “Sail On Silver Girl,” and consists of a choral album and a documentary film about the project.

The project was named “Sail On Silver Girl” to honor the late Isabelle Manahan, D’Amico said. Manahan, who had been a member of GSB’s advanced chorus before going on to Lincoln Academy, passed away in June of last year at age 15.

“We named it after her passing to keep her memory alive,” said D’Amico. “It was another extension of our community reflection, especially because Izzy was so active in all the programs at GSB.”

The “Sail On Silver Girl” project, begun in September 2017, features “last year’s eighth graders and seventh graders and this year’s eighth graders” in the GSB advanced chorus, D’Amico said. Some of those involved are now freshmen at Lincoln Academy.

“We’ve never done anything like this before,” said D’Amico of the ambitious project that also features local musicians Sean Fleming on piano/keyboard, Dave Martin on guitar, John Cannon on bass, Michael Sevon on drums, and Curt Boot on trumpet. Cannon and Sevon both work at GSB.

John Morrison, of Auburn, was the project’s sound engineer and Jared Morneau, of Brunswick, was the video engineer.

Members of local community chorus Common Threads also took part in the project, D’Amico said.

GSB’s advanced chorus “got to do something professional,” D’Amico observed.

It was the first time that GSB choral students had been involved in a musical project of such magnitude and seriousness, from the very beginning of learning all the songs through to listening to raw recorded tracks and later to mixed tracks, which “made their faces light up,” D’Amico said.

For more information and to watch the video visit their website at sailonproject.wordpress.com.

Submitted by Sarah Woog from the The Washington County Consortium. 

Meet Mathy Terrill, Social Studies Teacher, A.P History Teacher, History Department Head, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teaching Fellow, National Honor Society Advisor, Gay Straight Transgendered Alliance Advisor, Student Assistant Team Co-Advisor, Homecoming Coordinator, Varsity Cross Country Coach, Varsity Track and Field Assistant Coach, and Overall Ridiculously Busy and Dedicated Educator at Washington Academy.

Mathy and I met at her home in Machias over the weekend so I could interview her for this profile. I usually come to such interviews with questions prepared, but this time I was stumped. Mathy does EVERYTHING. How could I structure the interview to highlight her deep commitment to education in Washington County without leaving anything out? Truth is, I couldn’t. So I asked her what she is most proud of. She told me two things: her work as a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teaching Fellow, and the Prom Dress Boutique she puts on as advisor for the National Honor Society at Washington Academy.

Mathy has been a United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Teaching Fellow for three years. She goes to Washington, D.C. every summer for a week to connect with other Fellows and gain resources and study practices for teaching the Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Washington Academy and to support other teachers in bringing Genocide Studies lessons to their classrooms. Mathy has shared her work at Harvest of Ideas for the past three years and continues to work with teachers throughout the school year to develop age-appropriate curriculum in an effort to bring these important lessons to students beyond Washington Academy.

The Prom Dress Boutique is an annual event held on a Saturday morning in April each year at Washington Academy and has been covered by many news outlets including the Bangor Daily News, Machias Valley News Observer, and WABI News Channel 5 (here is a story from this years event). Hundreds of dresses have been collected by donation throughout the years and are made available to students to pick from, as are shoes and accessories. Mathy and the National Honor Society set up the cafeteria at Washington Academy as a boutique, complete with dressing rooms, and organize the fantastic inventory on racks by size so area students may come and experience prom shopping without the prohibitive price tag typically associated with such fun.

One of the best things about Mathy is her eagerness to share. Part of her enthusiasm for her work comes from her belief that all our kids deserve the opportunities she brings to Washington Academy. you can reach out to Mathy (m.terrill@raider4life.org) if you’d like to incorporate Genocide Studies into your classroom. Somehow she’ll find the time to help you. She always does.

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/.