Professors tell the trustees they feel left out of the process; the board approves a new $523.4 million budget that freezes tuition for a sixth year.
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.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
At long last, University of Maine System sees surplus in its future
After years of sizable deficits that forced painful faculty and program cuts, projections hint of a budget in the black in 2021.
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Posted inLifestyle, Local & State, News, Schools and Education
Portland high schools expanding Chinese language classes
The school district already offers Mandarin classes. The new arrangement will bring an instructor from China who will teach two classes at Deering High and two at Casco Bay High.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
Embattled SAD 6 superintendent resigns
Frank Sherburne steps down amid pressure from parents who called for his ouster after he broke the district’s nepotism policy by hiring his son, who lacked state approval to work with students and was later charged with the sexual assault of a student in another district.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
Teachers, residents say ‘the trust has been violated’ in SAD 6
Many residents of the five small towns that make up the school district are frustrated and angry about nepotism issues focused on Superintendent Frank Sherburne.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
SAD 6 risked conflict of interest in using own counsel for probe
The school board strayed from the norm by not hiring an outside attorney to determine whether two members and the superintendent had violated the district’s nepotism policy.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
Teachers union, parent call for state action on SAD 6 superintendent
They call on the Department of Education to take action over the school board’s failure to discipline Superintendent Frank Sherburne, whose son was hired in violation of a nepotism policy.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
Nepotism policy was violated, SAD 6 board says, but no action against superintendent
Residents are outraged after a marathon closed-door session on the hiring of Superintendent Frank Sherburne’s son, who was later charged with sexual assault in another district.
Posted inLocal & State, News, Schools and Education
Critic of SAD 6 superintendent ejected from school board meeting
A woman shouts ‘Resign!’ to Superintendent Frank Sherburne during a meeting of the school board, which has yet to publicly address questions about the district’s hiring of Sherburne’s son.
Posted inLocal & State, Maine Crime, News, Schools and Education
Former ed tech charged with sexual assault lacked state approval to work in classroom
Zachariah Sherburne, son of the SAD 6 superintendent, was employed by two Maine school districts without having any credentials on file with the state.