BAHS announces new slate of Peer LEO officers

 

The new Peer LEO officers for the 2024-25 school year are, from left, Historian Grace Hayes, President Piper Sanders, Vice President Story Carlson, and Secretary Kate Lemon. They are holding their $400 donation check to PAWs.

Photo by Charles Lagerbom

BELFAST — The Belfast Lions Club has announced the new slate of officers for the 2024-25 school year of its Peer Leader LEOs community service program at Belfast Area High School.

They are Historian Grace Hayes, President Piper Sanders, Vice President Story Carlson and Secretary Kate Lemon.

The Peer Leader LEOs program recently held its second annual Mud Run/Walk 5K to raise funds for the local PAWs animal adoption agency at Belfast City Park and have since presented PAWs a check for $400.

Students cheer for friends as Masons award bikes

 

SWANVILLE — At Kermit Nickerson Elementary School, kids are working with Belfast Masonic Lodge 24, reading books in exchange for chances to win bikes.

The “Bikes For Books” program, run by the Maine Masonic Charitable Foundation, awards bicycles to children across the state every year. According to the foundation’s webpage, “In 2019 alone, approximately 90 Masonic Lodges throughout Maine presented over 2,500 bicycles to children … in local schools and public libraries.”

At Nickerson Elementary, students in grades 3 to 5 have been reading books, filling out tickets for each book read, and dropping them in a jar with the hope that their names might be selected.

“Each book they read, they get to put another ticket in,” Belfast Mason Keith Pooler told The Republican Journal. “So, it’s a program to encourage reading for children.”

On May 3, Masons Pooler and Ben Bucklin brought six bicycles to the Kermit Nickerson gymnasium and set them up against the wall. Kids filed into the gymnasium, following their teachers and sitting on the floor.

Dr. Laura Miller, acting school principal, introduced Pooler and Bucklin to the students, explaining what the Masonic organization does for the community.

“Charitable work,” Miller said. “What do you think that means?”

Moving into the drawing, Miller prefaced the contest by reminding students that, should they not win a bike, seeing a friend win can be just as exciting and fulfilling.

“It’s kind of like Christmas,” she said. “Sometimes it’s just as important to celebrate when a friend gets something, even if you don’t get it. Even though you wish with all your heart that you would get it.

“You’re all winners already,” Miller continued. “You all participated, you’re all readers.”

Pooler and Bucklin drew two names for each class. Students gasped and cheered as Pooler drew the names of their friends. Recipients, some blushing fiercely or rubbing their eyes, accepted claps on the back, whoops and hollers as they went to stand next to their new bikes.

When Pooler called the name of a girl in the fifth grade, she strode up to her teacher and told her, “I already have a bike,” before sitting back down.

The next girl Pooler called announced the same, and it wasn’t until Pooler had drawn a third ticket that the fifth grade class applauded as the recipient stood and accepted her prize.

“I want to say thank you to all of you,” Pooler said before leaving. “The generosity and charity in this room is huge. And we’ll see you again next year.”

Village Soup Article

 

                        RSU 71 IT Director Enhances School Safety with the Help of Maine DOE                            School Safety Specialist Course 

As IT Director, Dr. David Fournier leads a team of seven people in Regional School Unit (RSU) 71 in Belfast. Together, they manage all aspects of technology in the district, including everything from building and maintaining networks to laptop fleets and much more!

Although Fournier loves the techie part of his job, especially watching teachers and students use technology to increase learning, he knew that involvement in school-related technology could go far beyond the classroom.

“I came into the safety role by working on security cameras, keyless door entry systems, and radios/walkie-talkies,” explained Fournier. “Our district has a safety task force that meets monthly, and I joined to better understand how my role as IT director could help address safety issues in our schools.”

Fournier took the Maine Department of Education (DOE) School Safety Specialist course in January of 2023 to help him better understand school safety and its complexities. Maine DOE’s Maine School Safety Center offers an 8-week School Safety Specialist course, provided asynchronously through Eastern Maine Community College (EMCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

“Taking the School Safety Specialist course gave me better insights into what could and should be done to keep our staff and students safe,” said Fournier.

The course is free to Maine schools and covers everything from the fundamentals of school safety to climate and culture, including behavioral threat assessment. It also incorporates emergency operations planning, which includes networking with appropriate stakeholders and incident command systems.

Following the training, Fournier’s role as IT Director expanded to include leading the RSU71 District Safety Task Force. Since becoming a school safety specialist, one of his biggest safety enhancements was guiding the district through purchasing and implementing the Share 911 program.

“Share 911 is an emergency notification system that addresses the communication issues we have experienced during emergency events over the past few years,” explained Fournier. “I have also instituted a standard debriefing protocol that is used after any safety event to capture the mistakes made and lessons learned during an event.”

In addition to these two significant changes, RSU 71 has a Parent Safety Page highlighting the district’s safety efforts. You can see the many other safety protocols RSU 71 has in place there.

Looking to the future, Fournier is working on plans to conduct more regularly scheduled tabletop safety exercises to enable school staff to react to an emergency as effectively as possible.

Knowing that a successful and safe school community is almost impossible without great community partners, Fournier has many people to thank.

“I would like to thank Erik Endress, the owner of Share 911 (share911.com), for the top-notch support and training he has personally provided to RSU71 this year,” he said. “I also want to thank Dale Rowley, the Waldo County Emergency Management Director, for his continued training, support, and difficult tabletop exercises to work through!”

Fournier also extended a very special shoutout to the RSU71 Safety Task Force members. They helped “tackle such a difficult, but important, aspect of schooling that goes unheralded,” said Fournier. “They are doing the hard (and scary) work, and I thank them for their continued efforts.”

The School Safety Specialist course is a program of the Maine DOE’s Maine School Safety Center and is available at no cost to Maine schools. Cohorts start at the beginning of every month and complete in 8 weeks. All work is done asynchronously through Eastern Maine Community College (EMCC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and takes approximately 20-25 hours to complete.