EDUCATOR VOICES
Integrating School and Community
The St. George Municipal School Unit (MSU) has found creative ways to support teachers’ innovative ideas, meet the needs of all students, and connect the community to their school. How are they doing it? By prioritizing relationships, staff and student wellbeing, and...
Giving Students Hope for the Future
Zoe Weil, co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), shares her revolutionary approach to education, designed to provide young people with the skills, capacities, and experiences they need to feel confident in solving the problems they care...
How Charter Schools can Enhance Educational Equity and Systemize Inquiry-based Learning
Scott Barksdale is the Head of School for the Harpswell Coastal Academy. Scott began his career as a musician but found that friends who were teachers seemed the happiest in their career choices. That change in career trajectory developed into an 11-year career...
The School within a School Model, Developing Success Pathways for all Students
Public Schools are filled with Innovative educators and leaders. In this interview, Aaron Churchill speaks with Julia Sleeper-Whiting, Executive Director of the Tree Street Youth Center and Jake Langlais, Superintendent of the Lewiston Public Schools. In this...
Advice from Fern Desjardins, Maine Charter School Commission
Fern Des Jardins has served her community of St. Agatha in rural Maine for all her professional life. Fern has influenced the lives of hundreds of students in her classroom as well as education leaders across the state and country. In this remarkable interview, Fern...
Charter Schools as Catalyst for Community Rebirth
Early in his career as a middle school teacher in Philadelphia Travis Works realized the best way for a child to achieve success was to provide them what they need when they need it. Although most of the education research encouraged that, it not practiced in the...
School-within-a-School for Several Public Districts in Rural Maine
EdForumofMaine · Cobscook Institute - Kara McCimmon Director Kara McCrimmon, is an educator who was able to forge creative alternative pathways for students desiring to engage in experiential learning not typically offered at a district schools. In a creative...
Student Assessment Models and Reimagining a Post-Covid Education System
Erica Mazzeo is the Director of Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment in RSU 57. Her unique educational history as researcher and teacher in public, private and public charter schools makes her an exceptional resource in Maine as the state endeavors to reimagine a...
Online Virtual Schools
After 31 years as an educator in the “bricks and mortar” public school system, Maine native Walter Wallace took on the role of Principal at one of the State’s two virtual public schools. Prior to the Covid pandemic, many were suspicious of virtual schools. Maine...
Magnet School Innovations
Kylie Bragdon, Head of the Maine Ocean School in Searsport is a self-described “Downeast Girl” who followed her family’s generational involvement with lobstering. Sensing a need to provide educational opportunity to students who did not fit into typical district...