Let’s agree that, in 2024 and beyond, stories matter. And can we also agree that stories can and do inform public perception? Because stories matter, it’s worthwhile for a school to tell its own stories to its community, sharing not only its challenges but also its successes.

We live in a world and in a time when stories are everywhere, and where technology has transformed the ways in which stories can be created and distributed. Stories are powerful because they drive human perception.

Because social media has few to no filters, it is equally possible for stories to be created and ubiquitously shared that either show things as they are and encourage positive social engagement within a community, or that distort reality, state untruths, and seek to invoke negative emotional responses and actions.

Who is telling the stories of Maine’s public schools?

In 2018, Maine School Boards Association (MSBA) Executive Director Steven Bailey and Maine School Superintendents Association (MSSA) Executive Director Eileen King saw that the story of Maine’s public schools was primarily being told by individuals and groups who were not directly involved in those schools.

Troubled by the negative bent of many of these stories, Bailey and King began looking for ways to engage Maine’s public schools in telling their own stories. Through a common colleague—Jim Moulton, who is now a school board member of Maine School Administrative District (MSAD) 75—they connected to folks in Nebraska involved in a project called “Nebraska Loves Public Schools,” which is now “I Love Public Schools” (iloveps.org).

Thus began a conversation around the why and how of the Nebraska-based, highly effective, and positive storytelling effort. That conversation has now grown into a professional collaboration that leverages those who worked on the ground to bring Nebraska’s experience, knowledge, and skills to bear here in Maine.

Fast-forward to spring 2022. Now nearing the end of the pandemic, Maine’s public schools were continuing to have their stories primarily told by others. There were several districts that had begun to actively tell their own stories, but it was clearly time to organize and empower at a state-wide level. We needed to ensure that the positive accomplishments of Maine’s public schools were documented, curated, and shared.

Purposefully sharing positive stories

Maine Loves Public Schools (MLPS: mainelovespublicschools.org) is a movement initiated by the Maine Education Leaders Professional Learning Collaborative (MELPLC), a nonprofit organization created to support public schools in Maine. Led by MSBA and MSSA, they have partnered with the following associations to initiate the project: Maine Principals’ Association, Maine Administrators of Services for Children with Disabilities, Maine Administrators of Career and Technical Education, Maine Curriculum Leaders Association, and Maine Association of School Business Officials. The five-member core planning team includes two MSBA board directors: Lucy Richard, an MSAD 1 school board chair and MSBA past president; and Becky Fles, the MSAD 11 school board chair, a MSBA past president, a member of the MSBA board of directors, and a member of NSBA’s board of directors.

In addition to MELPLC member organizations, the movement is now also supported by Educate Maine, Live and Work in Maine, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Education Association, and the Maine Secretary of State.

Maine Loves Public Schools is an effort to inspire residents of Maine to purposefully and actively support public schools for a simple reason—because public schools are fundamental to our quality of life and the economic health of our communities, both today and in our collective future.

A Positive Maine Story of the Day: Students from the MSAD #1 Educational Farm in Presque Isle, Maine, set out bees to pollinate the apple orchards that the students care for as part of their CTE classes. Students tend the trees, grow, pick, and sell the apples. From the beehives, the students extract and sell the honey.

 

Community foundations

Maine’s public schools play critical roles in their communities that go far beyond the academic preparation of learners. Public schools support the development of a community’s culture; of human bonds that will far outlast high school graduation. The seeds of social, cultural, and business connections are planted in a community’s elementary, middle, and high schools. It is from these seeds that communities—towns, cities, or states—grow.

The very rural nature of a state can accentuate this reality. Approximately 90% of Maine is forested, making it the most heavily forested state in the nation. Because of this rurality, Maine’s public schools play an outsized role by providing a gathering place for their communities. Whether you are attending a science fair, a book signing, a concert, or a sporting event, chances are you’ll be coming to a public school. When it’s voting day, you’re likely to be casting your ballot in a public school.

During the pandemic, Maine’s public schools, like those around the country, were forced to do their work virtually. Because of this, the community perception and acceptance of public schools as requisite, effective, visible, and valued cornerstones of our communities was eroded.

With students, parents, and extended families coming to see a child’s education as something that could be accomplished remotely by a school’s faculty, or even independently by a family, the perception of the importance and value of our public schools suffered.

A Positive Maine Story of the Day: Students from Oceanside High School’s NOVA program, which connects students with experiential learning opportunities, harvested, processed, and packaged vegetables from plots tended by members of a teen agriculture program. 

 

Today’s reality

With that said, there is a growing new awareness of public schools’ role in our community’s social, cultural, and economic future. Given the role schools play in shaping a community’s future, organizations and individuals with agendas often unrelated to education are actively using public schools as a way to bring attention to their goals. At the same time, they are working to disrupt and discredit the work of public schools.

In these highly politicized, divisive, and divided times, public schools have come to be seen as political tools. Because everyone cares about kids, because schools matter to everyone, messages that have kids and school at their core grab attention—whether positive or negative, and within every type of media.

It is easy to gain traction in today’s social media culture by criticizing and pointing fingers. Fear and anger are relatively easy pathways to incite action, and school administrators, school board members, and teachers in both rural and urban settings across the state of Maine have become targets of negative stories and, in some cases, negative actions.

Popularizing the positive

Maine needed a trusted, single source for honest, positive stories about public education. The need was for content that can be easily accessed, shared, and leveraged across the state to help reinforce public understanding of the value Maine and its citizens receive from our public schools. In addition, it was thought that these stories must encourage community and individual actions to make our public schools ever better through increased positive community engagement.

The MLPS movement is working to be that trusted source with a stated mission to “document, curate, and share stories from within our school communities to promote trust in, and positive public engagement with, Maine’s public schools.”

As MLPS continues to mature and grow in its role as a convener of positive stories about Maine’s public schools, we have brought together a significant number of diverse digital assets to our website. And because the MLPS model is one of “convening” not “collecting or owning,” those assets continue to thrive in their original individual locations—be that through Facebook, a podcast, a website, or a YouTube video—while at the same time becoming part of the statewide collaborative and positive storytelling effort.

As an example, Maine’s career and technical education schools have a wonderful collection of video stories on their YouTube channel located at: https://youtube.com/@mainecteschools8898. By cross-posting those videos on the MLPS website at: https://www.mainelovespublicschools.org/watch/categories/career/technical, potential visibility of this well-produced content has increased significantly.

Podcasts by Maine’s Commissioner of Education Pender Makin (“What Holds Us Together”) and Five Town Community School District Superintendent Maria Libby (“Super Story”) are also cross-posted here: https://www.mainelovespublicschools.org/listen with links back to their hosting sites. Again, broadened access, engagement in the collaborative and statewide effort, with uninterrupted presence in the original location.

A Positive Maine Story of the Day:  At a fishery in Raymond, Maine, ecology and recently arrived immigrant students from Windham High School helped Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife scientists express eggs from female salmon that were immediately fertilized by the male salmon. Students weighed, measured, and returned the fish to the Sebago Lake watershed.

 

Community engagement

Avenues for community engagement and contributions are a key to MLPS’ success strategy. To this end, MLPS Storytelling Ambassadors (https://www.mainelovespublicschools.org/storytelling-ambassadors) are being actively recruited. To date, more than 30 individuals from across the state have signed on to help create and share content that highlights the value their community’s public schools bring to students.

Recognizing the critical importance of branding, MLPS worked with a Maine graphic designer (whose husband we discovered is a sixth-grade public school teacher) to create a full slate of branding materials. These materials have been used to create stickers, pins, magnets, bumper stickers, and T-shirts that carry the MLPS logo—all of which have been snapped up when made available at events.

What comes next?

As MLPS continues to mature and grow, it will be important to increase visibility and recognition of its website as the one-stop shop for positive stories about Maine’s public schools. Concurrent with that effort will be the development and implementation of a social media strategy that spans the state and reaches all demographics.

Above all, it must be an ongoing effort to establish, maintain, and grow strong relationships with all of Maine’s public schools and the people who transform those buildings, playing fields, and bus runs into learning experiences that support the healthy development of Maine’s future.

 

A Positive Maine Story of the Day: After a crash course in airbrushing from her school’s auto collision repair instructor, a Caribou High School student was able to give her cardboard and paper mache zebra shark sculpture the perfect smooth finish.

 

All photos and descriptions courtesy of Maine Loves Public Schools