Beyond Burnout

What Needs to Be Done to Tackle the Educator Shortage The root cause of educator dissatisfaction and frustration is a lack of staff, support and respect, and not a perceived inability to manage stress. To prevent an exodus from the profession, MEA believes district...

MEA Salary Guide 2022-23

MEA maintains a salary database to better help members understand how educators are paid across Maine. MEA encourages you to use this information as you advocate for wages and benefits in your district. The data on the following pages is based off of contracts...

Video Production. Animation & Game Design. Media Literacy. Computer Science. Graphic Design. Coding.

If it can happen on a computer or digitally or with a camera of some sort, Julie York at South Portland High School has likely taught it. Her classes are an outlet for many kids in the school who she says might have otherwise been “lost.” “I try to give them things...

Student for a Day

Elected Leaders Get Much-Needed Lesson From inside her 6th grade classroom at Gorham Middle School, teacher Theresa Arsenault, shared the importance of exercise as part of her daily lesson. The difference on this day, House Majority Leader Maureen Terry looked on as...

Restorative Yoga Elective Brings Balance to Teenagers

As both educators and students work to prioritize mental health to make schools places where people feel ready to work and learn, one teacher in Bath turned to yoga for herself and her students. Johnna Stanton teaches AP Language and Composition, 9th grade English,...

Editor’s Note – Spring 2023

Bottom Feeding My favorite color is yellow. I love how it’s so bright and sunny. Which is odd because yellow DOES NOT match my disposition. Perhaps that’s why I am drawn to it. I’m salty, sarcastic, from Jersey, and believe in living like a halibut, a bottom feeder,...

The Right to Know and Your Rights

The Maine Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) gives anyone in Maine the broad right to access public records, including information about public schools. The following information is provided to members from MEA's General Counsel, Ben Grant. FOAA is based off the principle...

The IMPACT of Tuition Waivers for FREE Community College

By Paul Johnson, Professor, University of Southern Maine and Jackie Edmondson, Professor, University of Southern Maine Governor Mills announced last September that students who had graduated from high school over the previous two years would be eligible to attend any...

Lessons Learned

MEA’s Early Career Conference supports educators in the first five years on the job MEA hosted its annual day of professional development for our members who are newer to the profession. Our Early Career Conference, On Course to Lead, helped those in the first five...

MEA 95th Annual Representative Assembly

Each year, the MEA holds its Representative Assembly (RA), the democratic body of the Union. At the 95th annual RA members will discuss the following proposals below. MEA-95-RADownload