Maine School System Runs on Ideas : Turns to Innovation to Overcome Isolation, Lack of Funds

New Suncook School, nestled in a clearing off a pine-scented road in northwestern Maine, seems an idyllic setting for 270 young minds to grow.

But the elementary school’s scenic solitude is both blessing and curse.

As schools across the country struggle to meet a decade-long push for reform, rural schools like New Suncook face the task with two major handicaps: isolation and scarce funds.

In this Maine village, which survives on potato farming and summer tourism, teachers make $16,500 to $29,500 a year. Teachers like Rhonda Boyer routinely work unpaid extra hours each morning to be on hand to greet the first busloads of kids arriving at 6:30 a.m.

‘I Like Talking to Kids’

“I don’t really mind coming early,” Boyer said as she looked after about 50 children in the schoolyard. “I like talking to kids in a social way.”

Staying in touch with the latest teaching methods means long weekly drives to universities on the Maine coast.

Reform ideas could easily have passed by a school like New Suncook. But its principal, Gary MacDonald, was determined not to let that happen.

“There was a general sense here that, with all the reform reports coming out, . . . if we wanted to be respected as professionals, we had to respond. We had to be on the cutting edge,” he explained.

Urged on by MacDonald, teachers taught themselves the art of grantsmanship. The school received several Maine “innovative grants” to enhance ties with parents and the community.

Grades Mixed in Class

Another state grant helped two teachers devise a highly innovative “MAGIC Class” (an acronym for Multi-Aged Grouping using Integrated Curriculum) that mixes 90 kindergartners, first-graders and second-graders in a single class. In that class, younger or less able students aren’t labeled or isolated from their older or more capable peers; students mingle and learn from one another.

At their own expense, MacDonald and several teachers flew to Seattle a couple of years ago to hear the views of John Goodlad, a highly regarded reformer. Last summer, MacDonald and some teachers attended a National Education Assn. symposium in Minneapolis on school-based reform.

New Suncook even established a sister-school relationship with a rural California school. MacDonald met Karen Kawai, the principal of G. B. Miller Elementary School in La Palma, Calif., at the Minneapolis meeting, and the two hit it off.

Taught in California

“In February, 1988, five of us went out there on our vacations to teach. People gave up their vacations and footed the plane bill.

“Four weeks later,” MacDonald said, “four from G. B. Miller came East. It became known as the ‘California Connection.’ The kids were enthralled with the idea of learning about life in California, and vice versa.”

Such efforts to dispel professional isolation have paid dividends.

Brenda Thibodeaux, a potato farmer whose 11-year-old son, Brian, is dyslexic, said that a new teaching technique called semantic mapping has helped her son participate more actively in class discussions.

“That’s what Gary’s done,” Thibodeaux said, praising the principal. “Here they know about things like semantic mapping. In other schools, it’s not there.”

Even with those efforts, money remains an ever-present challenge.

Schools Share Principal

One way to save has been principal-sharing. For seven years, MacDonald has been principal of New Suncook. He is also principal of Sadie F. Adams School five miles away. Until a year and a half ago, he was principal of a third, the Annie Heald School, until it burned down.

“Principals are a new concept in this district. Putting in (administrative officials) is a suspect thing,” said Elizabeth Mascia, a former school board member whose 9-year-old daughter, Ann, attends fourth grade at New Suncook.

MacDonald encourages teachers to turn hardships--such as the noisy construction of a new school wing to accommodate pupils from the burned school--into learning opportunities. Youngsters wrote about the daily construction ruckus, using it as a lesson theme. The school plans to publish a photo essay when the extension is completed.

Fosters Creativity

MacDonald said that, above all, he tries to foster an atmosphere of creativity, sharing of ideas and constant questioning.

Thus, for example, fourth-grade teacher Karen Johnson has the freedom to teach reading without dull texts.

“I do reading a little differently,” she said. “I use trade books. I have kids heterogeneously grouped. It’s not by ability. It’s who wants to read this book?”