Proud
Moments
Maine Teacher of the Year, Portland EA Member, Cindy Soule From the Maine Department of Education Cindy Soule, a 4th grade teacher at Gerald E. Talbot Community School has been named the 2021 Teacher of the Year by the Maine Department of Education’s Teacher of the Year Program. In a unique, limited audience outdoor event held at the Gerald E. Talbot Community School in Portland, the Maine Department of Education and Educate Maine named fourth grade teacher Cindy Soule Maine’s 2021 Teacher of the Year. Students and colleagues at the school were able to watch the event via a live broadcast from their classrooms.
and collaborative thinking. Through inquiry and discourse, Soule empowers students to see themselves as meaningful contributors to their community. This work is recognized by her Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching candidacy. Soule’s colleagues had this to say of her work: Cindy believes, fervently, in taking her students’ thinking seriously, helping every single student in her class progress, and in advancing critical and creative thinking. Her belief in her students is infectious amongst her colleagues. She has a zeal for continuing to advance her own learning and a deep passion for helping her students and colleagues learn that is refreshing, hopeful, and desperately needed in the teaching profession. Congratulations, Cindy, on this well-deserved accomplishment.
Maine Custodian of the Year, RSU 23 EA Member, Joe Mason Courtesy in part of Maine Agriculture in the Classroom Joe Mason of Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono has been awarded as the Maine School Custodian of the Year and will be the recipient of the A. Burleigh Oxton Award for Excellence.
Cindy’s journey began in May, when she was named the 2020 County Teacher of the Year. Cindy, along with 15 other County Teachers of the Year, was selected from a pool of more than 300 teachers who were nominated earlier this year. In August, Cindy was named one of three state finalists before being named the 2021 Teacher of the Year.
Mason credits the “Read ME Agriculture” program as a factor that led him to reach out to the community more for volunteers and also working with staff to coordinate readings, he says, “This is one of the many things that really made my role as a custodian expand to also become involved in doing something other than just cleaning for the kids, but actually getting to ‘teach’, if you will.”
“We are proud to announce that Cindy Soule is the 2021 Maine Teacher of the Year!” said Heather Whitaker, 2020 Maine Teacher of the Year and member of the Teacher of the Year State Review Panel, “Cindy has been a dedicated member of the Talbot School Community for 20 years. She is a life-long learner who is committed to the craft of teaching and building strong relationships with her students, colleagues, and community. We will learn so much from her passion for teaching inquiry-based science and literacy!”
Mason started as a custodian at Asa Adams Elementary School in Orono in September of 2014. He became Greenhouse Coordinator 3 1/2 years ago and it was at that time he learned about the MAITC “Read ME Agriculture” program. Not long after that he had the school lined up for the ‘Applesauce Day’ reading and has continued with the program.
Cindy has an innate ability to create a learning community that disrupts the opportunity gap. For twenty of her twenty-one years of teaching, she has been committed to one of Maine’s most diverse schools, the Gerald E. Talbot Community School (formerly Riverton Elementary School), in Portland. Soule fosters a dynamic learning environment that inspires curiosity and citizenship in her fourth-grade students. A lifelong resident of Maine, Cindy developed an appreciation for the natural world. This passion is evident in her teaching. She grounds learning in real world contexts and encourages students to construct scientific understanding through observation, questioning,
In addition to the annual readings, Mason also works with some kids who help water the plants in the school’s greenhouse. He’s worked with small groups of students in the past couple of years to do things like build bee boxes for Mason bees, start marigold seeds, and grow edible pea shoots. During the school building closure, Mason said he missed the kids but managed to say hi via Zoom and is also now working to ensure they still have someone they can turn to besides their classroom teachers. “I felt outside the boundaries of my job description but quickly realized I gave the kids someone else to go to and have look out for them and that’s important, “said Mason. November 2020 • www.maineea.org
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