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Bucksport Christmas concert

BUCKSPORT – A Christmas concert featuring the Bucksport High School music department will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 17, at Bucksport Middle School.

In case of a school cancellation or bad weather, the makeup concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 20.

The concert is free to the first 500 people through the door.

The band, jazz band, chorus and jazz choir will perform yuletide favorites guaranteed to put you in the holiday mood – or double your money back!

If you are feeling like the Grinch, this is just what the doctor ordered.

Bangor High School

A Bangor High School student’s artwork was featured on this year’s Maine Recycles Week poster.

More than 4,000 posters were distributed to municipal offices, schools and businesses to announce the beginning of this year’s campaign to promote recycling and buying recycled products during Maine Recycles Week Nov. 8-15, according to Bruce White of the Waste Management and Recycling Program, Maine State Planning Office.

Bangor High School student Allison Doucette’s artwork was the winning entry in last year’s poster competition. It is the first time that computer-generated art has been used.

During November, schools, communities and businesses hosted events to raise public awareness about the need to recycle more and to buy products made from recycled materials.

“These are exciting times for recycling in Maine,” said Martha Freeman, director of the State Planning Office. “Many communities have invested in new or expanded recycling facilities. In parts of the state, we are seeing for the first time single stream recycling, which makes recycling easier for residents and visitors alike. The enthusiasm generated by these students will help Maine’s recycling effort to succeed.”

For a free copy of this year’s poster or for information on the school poster competition or recycling, visit the State Planning Office’s Web sites www.mainerecycles.com and www.recyclemaine.com.

Upward Bound

AUGUSTA – Some 150 high school students from across the state who are preparing for post-secondary school got a hands-on civics lesson recently.

Students enrolled in the Upward Bound program had the opportunity to debate and vote on a measure in the House Chamber of the Maine House of Representatives under the guidance of Speaker of the House Glenn Cummings.

In an effort to encourage high school students to make the leap to postsecondary school, Upward Bound students were there to meet with state leaders to learn about the legislative process and share their thoughts with state leaders.

Cummings, a native of Bath and a Morse High School graduate, was the first member of his family to attend college. He urged the students to follow in his footsteps and go on to pursue higher education.

“Many of these students here today will have the opportunity to be the first person in their family to call themselves a college graduate,” said Cummings. “It is a powerful incentive for them to succeed and an important measure for our state. Maine needs these young people to be successful and we need to do all we can to ensure they have the opportunity to get a college education.”

The students filled the House Chamber and immediately fell into their roles as state representatives. The question under consideration for the students was whether to amend the Maine Constitution to allow the voting age to be lowered to the age of 16.

A lively debate ensued, with students making arguments both for and against the measure. In the end, the students in favor of the constitutional amendment could not muster the support of two-thirds of the representatives and the measure failed on a 74-63 vote.

Upward Bound is federally funded through the TRIO program and serves to identify low-income and potential first-generation college students and provide them with encouragement, support and assistance to help them achieve their educational goals.

“There has been a tremendous shift in the American workplace that stresses the need for higher education,” said Cummings. “Upward Bound is doing a tremendous job in reaching kids who may not otherwise see themselves as college material. They get the confidence and the support needed to succeed in a college setting.

“As a parent, as a high school teacher and as a college professor, I’ve always found that when you set high standards for young people, they almost always meet them,” said Cummings. “We need to establish postsecondary school as being a standard all high school students should strive for and if we do, I am confident that more students will make college part of their future plans.”

Upward Bound programs are held during the summer at the University of Maine and several other Maine colleges.

Teacher certification

AUGUSTA – Sixteen more teachers from across Maine achieved National Board Certification this year, bringing the number of teachers in the state who meet the rigorous standards to 119. Maine has the fifth-highest percentage growth – 60 percent – of nationally certified teachers of all the states and the District of Columbia.

“National Board Certification is an extremely rigorous application process that only the highest quality teachers can achieve,” said Education Commissioner Susan A. Gendron. “There is wide agreement among researchers that national certification is good for the climate of schools, good for promoting the profession, and that achievement on most measures is higher among students of these teachers.”

Newly certified from eastern and central Maine are:

. Dianne Johnson, Fruit Street School, Bangor.

. Sheila Cochrane, Newport Elementary School.

. Kathleen Slack, Mt. Desert Island High School, Bar Harbor.

The Maine Department of Education provides a $1,250 subsidy that covers half the candidate fee to many applicants. Some school districts provide part or all of the remainder; some candidates pay the difference. In 2006, Gov. John Baldacci signed into law a provision for an annual $3,000 salary supplement for national board certified teachers.

As part of the certification process, teachers build a portfolio that includes student work samples, assignments, videotapes and a thorough analysis of their classroom teaching. They also are assessed on their knowledge of the subjects they teach.

Colleges

Eastern Maine Community College

BANGOR – Nothing illustrates what Eastern Maine Community College is all about more effectively than listening to a diverse group of students describe how they came to Eastern Maine and what they are doing at the college.

In what has come to be an anticipated tradition of student storytelling, this year legislators and members of the business community learned how hard it is to generalize when it comes to the students of EMCC.

Backgrounds range from parents who don’t have high school diplomas to parents who are concert violinists and college professors. EMCC students are both the young and those well into their adult lives. And the messages within their stories are equally diverse:

. How education is the way one person has chosen to change their life direction when everything they had put together wasn’t working.

. How EMCC is part of a pathway that will continue at the University of Maine and then law school for a person who discovered his potential in basic training.

. How University of Maine students also find their way here and how passion for technology is often at the heart of that switch.

. How important it is to be able to seriously pursue a degree while maintaining the responsibilities of a working life.

. How disorienting it is to have your life turn upside down when your employer goes bankrupt, leaving you at midlife with a mortgage and no employment prospects.

Mark Laverdiere, a business management student, started off the event with his story and then served as the reception’s master of ceremonies.

Other student speakers included Amanda White, business management; Ethan Fick, education; Elizabeth Wieck, culinary arts; and Randy Tompkins, liberal studies.

Organized by students at the college in collaboration with the EMCC Foundation and Advisory Council, nearly 100 people attended the Dec. 4 reception at Rangeley Hall.

The event featured hors d’oeuvres prepared and served by the EMCC Culinary Arts program, and table displays on programs and opportunities at Eastern Maine, including the college’s newly developed group on sustainability, the gender equity program and student senate-led projects and activities.

Eastern Maine Community College

BANGOR – The Welding Test Center at the Eastern Maine Community College has been re-accredited by the American Welding Society. The re-accreditation allows for the issuing of national welder certifications accepted throughout the industry. Areas of exemplary standards and performance were noted for the superior facility and equipment, extremely experienced staff and exemplary quality manual.

Serving clients along the East Coast, the Welding Test Center is a full-time, independent third-party mechanical testing facility and has been the official testing agency for the Maine Department of Transportation and the Maine Department of Labor, Boiler Division. The Welding Test Center was one of the first laboratories in the country to be awarded this accreditation in 1990.

The center provides research and development of welding procedure specifications, qualified through destructive and nondestructive testing for all major codes.

Tom Giles, Welding Test Center laboratory director, holds certifications through the American Society of Nondestructive Testing and has been a certified welding inspector for 19 years. He has worked extensively in the industry as a welder and in quality control in power generation and nuclear construction.

Giles, who was hired in 1989 to establish the Welding Test Center, developed the center based on industry need for nimble, customized testing, which is something larger engineering laboratories aren’t always able to provide.

“Our center stands for quality testing, personalized service and exceptionally fast turnaround times,” said Giles.