Regional centers help teachers stay in the game

BANGOR – April Belyea, a Caribou educator, was chagrined recently to discover that a university course she needed to teach special education was filled.

Her problem was solved after Dave Ouellette, director of the new Regional Teacher Development Center in Aroostook County, requested that more students be admitted to the University of Maine at Presque Isle class.

“He’s the middleman,” she said.

Since late last summer when the center was created on the Presque Isle campus, Ouellette has been helping area educators get the courses they need to continue teaching. Many educators are suddenly finding themselves having to take a variety of classes to meet new teaching requirements mandated by state and federal regulations.

Other teachers also may need special courses to remain certified to teach or to be able to teach new subjects. Belyea has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education but decided she wanted to teach special education. She has been teaching special education with a temporary license while she amasses the necessary credits to be fully certified.

The new Presque Isle-based center is one of three in the state recently developed through a partnership among local schools, the University of Maine System and the Maine Department of Education. The goal is to help connect teachers who need to meet specific requirements with the universities and education officials who can provide the training.

Such a task is not as easy as it sounds, particularly in rural areas far from a college or university. Also, some classes may not be available at a particular campus that semester or even that year. Another problem is that some of the education classes might be offered for traditional students and available only during the day when teachers are working.

Ouellette, a former Caribou High School principal, has helped solve some of those problems by letting teachers know what classes are available that meet state requirements and by providing UMPI and the University of Maine at Fort Kent with a database of teachers who need classes so the campuses can better develop and schedule either traditional or distance education courses.

“They now have data that shows that enough teachers need a particular class to justify offering it and that the class needs to be run after school hours,” said Ouellette, who also has hooked teachers up with professors for independent study projects.

The centers will play an increasingly important role in the state because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act which requires that by 2007 all teachers must be fully certified and must demonstrate that they know the subject they teach well – either by passing a rigorous test or by taking a certain number of courses.

Based on the most recent figures, approximately 90 percent of Maine teachers fall into that category, said John O’Brien of the Maine Department of Education.

“The power of the regional centers is their ability to hit the ground on the local level to find out where [teachers’] needs are,” he said.

While the Aroostook center hasn’t been around long, it has already proved its effectiveness, said area superintendents. In the past, “teachers would come to me, saying, ‘We don’t know where to go to find classes,”‘ said Fort Fairfield Superintendent Jeannette Condon, a member of the center’s steering committee.

“Now they get spreadsheets from Dave, saying here are your opportunities.”

The center also will help teachers who need professional development so they can deliver the state’s Learning Results standards which may not have been part of their preparation program 20 years ago, said Fort Kent Superintendent Sandra Bernstein.

Lucy Stroble, director of teacher education at UMPI, said there always has been a large number of teachers who needed coursework for professional development or to become certified. “We’ve sort of filled that need piecemeal, never really knowing who’s out there, who needs what, and how we might accommodate their needs. Now it’s being approached more systematically,” she said.

At UMFK, Scott Brickman, associate professor of music and education, was able to adjust his offerings for the spring semester to accommodate a local teacher who needed a class. Subsequently, three other students also signed up.

“This is helping generate more of an interest in an area like arts education where there’s a need for qualified people, especially in rural areas,” he said.

Richard Barnes, director of the Regional Teacher Development Center initiative, said the centers operate with federal grant funds and $250,000 from the University of Maine System. He hopes down the road for more support from both the university system and the department of education, “so when a teacher calls up we can immediately give them some place to go.”

“Right now, when someone calls, we have to say, ‘Let’s see if we can work to get something going,'” said Barnes, associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Southern Maine.

At the Regional Teacher Development Center in Ellsworth, which got up and running in October, director Kathy McAvoy works with teachers in Hancock and Washington counties. “The center has great potential,” said McAvoy, a former principal in SAD 30 (Lee area), who recalled the difficulty her own teachers experienced finding courses.

Another center, at the University of Maine at Farmington, aids educators in Somerset, Kennebec and Franklin counties. Down the road, the plan is to establish five more centers.

An impetus for the creation of the centers was the difficulty schools are having in filling teaching positions in math and science, foreign language and special education, among other subjects, said Ouellette.

“We’re helping the teacher shortage by getting these people qualified,” he said.