The BDN Opinion section operates independently and does not set news policies or contribute to reporting or editing articles elsewhere in the newspaper or on bangordailynews.com.
Flynn Ross is chair of the teacher education department and coordinator of the extended teacher education program at the University of Southern Maine. These views are her own as she is not authorized to represent the university or the University of Maine System. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear in the BDN every other week.
We need you! Do you have any interest in teaching? Have we got a pathway for you! There are more than 1,000 job openings for teachers in Maine on ServingSchools.com with the start of school upon us.
Are you a mid-life career changer with a bachelor’s degree? Try the master’s degree programs at University of Southern Maine, University of Maine, St. Joseph’s College or University of New England. In several programs, you can work full time on a conditional certification, earn full teacher pay and benefits, have some of your courses paid for by the school district and have more courses paid for by the Maine Teacher Residency grant.
Are you part way through a bachelor’s degree? University of Maine at Augusta has all online teacher certification for general education, USM has an all online teacher certification degree for special education, or complete your bachelor’s in person at University of Maine at Farmington, University of Maine at Presque Isle, University of Maine at Machias, UMaine, Husson University, St. Joe’s or UNE.
Do you want to check out teaching without having full responsibility for your own classroom on a conditional or emergency certification? Good idea. You can be an educational technician, and in several programs, you can use your work as a paid internship while you complete your courses.
Interested in special education? You can be part of an apprenticeship program in which you are employed full time with benefits in an ed tech position while you take coursework that is mostly paid for by the school district and earn your bachelor’s degree simultaneously.
Are you just starting on your bachelor’s degree? You can get an ed tech certification at Eastern Maine Community College while working full time as an ed tech in less than a year.
Still in high school, thinking about careers? Check out early college opportunities and you could be paid for 75 hours of internship working in schools and with children to explore teaching as a career. UMF has an early college pathway for high schoolers to explore teaching. Westbrook High School is now offering a Future Teachers Academy for juniors and seniors leading to 12 early college credits that will transfer into bachelor’s degree teacher preparation programs, with an endorsement on your transcript and a cord of recognition at graduation.
There are many efforts to improve and promote teaching as a profession in Maine. The #TeachMaine website by the Maine Department of Education is an initiative to expand programs that have been successful in Maine based on a research report on policies that support teaching. These include improving teacher pay.
Legislation to raise starting teaching salaries to $50,000, sponsored by Sen. Teresa Pierce passed this year. However, it was not funded. Similarly, LD 974, presented by Rep. Rebecca Millett, sought to increase pay for ed techs and school support staff passed, but was not funded. These unfunded mandates to raise teacher pay recognize the need but provide none of the resources. Teachers and school staff deserve a livable wage that allows them to pay their student loans, child care for their own children and college tuition for their children.
Along with attracting new teachers, we need to do more to retain our quality veteran teachers. The Maine Teacher Residency helps address this by financially supporting mentor teachers with a $3,000 stipend along with a year-long mentor teacher workshop once a month online to connect mentors with other mentors.
Our students need and deserve well-prepared and supported teachers. Our education system is only as good as the quality of our teachers.
