The nationally funded group uses a new social media tactic to build an audience with clickbait content.
Noel K. Gallagher
Noel Gallagher covers K-12 and higher education issues statewide. Her stories are a mix of breaking news and trend stories. In recent years, they’ve ranged from why college costs so much, the launch of the state’s first charter schools, how a school welcomed a transgender student and why Maine schools have a hard time finding teachers. She’s enough of a news nerd to enjoy sitting through legislative education committee meetings and hours-long school board meetings so you don’t have to.
The Maine Press Association has honored Noel’s work, but she says she writes for the readers, in the firm belief that an informed citizenry is key to a healthy democracy.
Noel is a California native who has worked at wire services, online websites and newspapers across the country. She was in Washington D.C. during the early Clinton years, covering AIDS activism in 1990s San Francisco, documenting the business of wine in Sonoma County and riding out the boom and bust cycle of the early Internet era in early 2000s Silicon Valley. She arrived in Maine at the beginning of the recession and wrote quite a bit about the downturn here.
In her free time, Noel writes the occasional cookbook review, spends an inordinate amount of time at the Portland Public Library and hangs out with her three fabulous kids and wonderful husband. She is not a former member of the band Oasis.
Lawmakers back bill requiring schools to notify state about personnel investigations
The bill would formalize current policy, but was opposed by the state teachers union, which said it is being rushed through the Legislature without sufficient review.
Republican lawmaker targets candidate outside his district with anti-immigrant flier
Rep. Larry Lockman of Amherst, leader of the Maine First Project, says similar fliers were sent out in four other House districts.
Portland school board to include island schools, non-school facilities in cost-saving review
Redistricting, school closure and program changes could be among the possibilities considered in a major facilities assessment.
With state school funding drying up, Portland studying possible school closures, redistricting
Outside consultants and a local commission are to provide recommendations by early 2019.
Lewiston hospitals illegally turned away patients experiencing mental health crises
Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center both have both pledged to change their policies and increase staff education to eliminate the ‘patient dumping’ that is illegal under federal law.
Denied by Department of Transportation, PETA takes another crack at roadside lobster memorial
The animal rights group wants to know where it can install a tombstone for lobsters that died in a truck crash on Route 1 in Brunswick.
PETA wants to put up a roadside tombstone in memory of lobsters that died in truck crash
The proposed marker along Route 1 in Brunswick is the latest publicity effort by animal-rights activists targeting Maine’s signature shellfish.
Screen addicts: With students left to their own devices, schools and parents seek ways to keep kids attentive
Students today spend more hours glued to phones than in the classroom, and adults are turning to tracking apps or outright bans.
New University of Maine president puts her science and math background to work
Joan Ferrini-Mundy is tasked with developing new ways of meeting the state’s growing workforce needs.