Teachers are the catalyst of graduates’ success
By Xavier Botana
This month, more than 500 Portland Public Schools students
graduated from our three high schools. We’ll hold another ceremony June 27 for
approximately 100 Portland Adult Education students receiving their high school
diplomas or passing a high school equivalency test.
I am so proud of our more than 600 graduates. I am also
extremely proud of our Portland Public Schools teachers, who do such a great
job of educating our students.
Our job as a school district is to prepare and empower
students for college and career. Knowing what I know about members of the Class
of 2019, I’m confident we have met this goal. However, without our dedicated
and passionate teachers, we wouldn’t be able to realize this goal, class after
class.
We are fortunate to have many outstanding teachers on our
staff. Outside organizations agree, granting our teachers numerous accolades. I
don’t have the space here to name all our fantastic teachers, but I’ll highlight
just a few of the many honored with awards this school year.
Mallory Haar, an English language learner (ELL) teacher at
Casco Bay High School, is truly award winning. She garnered three awards for outstanding
teaching: a Lawrence W. O’Toole Teacher Leadership Award from the Nellie Mae
Education Foundation, which included a $15,000 grant; an Education for the
Common Good Award from Bowdoin College; and a Fulbright Teachers for Global
Classrooms grant. Casco Bay Principal Derek Pierce describes Mallory as “one of
this planet’s finest educators.”
At Portland High School, Olivia Bean, a new science teacher,
has won a five-year Knowles Teaching Fellowship for early-career math and
science teachers, worth approximately $150,000. Bean is in her first teaching
job at PHS.
The Knowles Teacher Initiative is a national program of support for exceptional
new teachers, who receive professional development, mentoring, and financial
support over a five-year period.
Olivia said one reason she loves teaching in Portland is our
district’s diversity. She plans to use some of the fellowship funding to learn
new strategies for teaching science to ELL students.
Deering High School English teacher Shana Genre is not only
a model teacher but also an exceptional
poet.
Shana’s poems were published in “Balancing Act 2: An
Anthology of Poems by Fifty Maine Women.” In December, the Portland Press
Herald published her poem “The Seed,” which was awarded a prize by the
anthology’s editors.
Shana not only teaches English and creative writing but also
is co-advisor of Breccia, Deering’s student-published literary magazine that
dates back to 1879. Under Shana’s tutelage, Breccia has won awards and inspired
young writers.
It’s thanks to these teachers and others that our graduates
are able to succeed.
June is also the month when we honor staff who have
contributed years of effort to making the Portland Public Schools a great place
to learn: our retirees.
Teacher Sue Olafsen is one example. For 21 years, Sue has
been a social studies teacher, a coach, a district leader helping to develop
and operationalize our Professional Learning Based Salary Structure, lead
negotiator for the Portland Education Association and its president since 2014.
She has dedicated herself to elevating the status of the profession in the
service of students.
She has also helped further enhance my respect for all our
teachers and the work they do.
I’ll close with a shout out to Portland voters for approving
our FY20 school budget on June 11. Our teachers couldn’t teach and our students
couldn’t learn and graduate without the generous commitment to education on the
part of the citizens of this great City. Thank you.
