ANNUAL REPORT
2014-2015
www.maineadulted.org
association.maineadulted.org
MAEA President’s Report
A Message from President Thelma Regan
From the winter we thought would never end, to my, how time flies. And here we are; another year passes. Has adult education ever had a quiet, slow, uneventful year? We have all been abuzz, diligently working our way through the new WIOA law, our CP Plans, the CT grant, and the College and Career Ready Standards, deciphering what it all means to our field . Does this change the way we work?
With all that happening, your MAEA Board believes we need to look at our strategic plan by first revisiting our mission and vision statements to ensure they represent who we are and what we stand for. It is a good practice to review and develop the strategic plan every five years. MAEA has set aside some time in August to tackle this task. I invite you to participate by completing the survey, sharing your ideas, critiques, and putting volume to your voice for all to hear. Remember MAEA is you and me and all of us together.
Our Executive Director has been with us a full year now and she has certainly earned her keep. Her organizational skills and attention to detail are the support we need. Shirley helps MAEA stay true to our purpose. Thank you.
This MAEA Board is great. They are dedicated, caring, kind people, reflective of the field they represent. Thank you for your hard work and due diligence making this organization better at promoting adult education in Maine . The committees ran and did their work with little guidance from me. I appreciate that.
I have been honored to lead this organization and represent all your hard, important work. This is one of the best feathers in my cap!
This marks the time when I pass on the leadership role to our dear colleague, Razell Ward. Razell has worked continuously on the conference since she became president-elect. She thinks outside of the box, attracting great ways of seeing and doing things better. COABE joining with MAEA guarantees attendees will take away much enrichment and benefits from regional and national experts. I have been wowed by the team efforts of those board members who worked with Razell to make this the one conference you won’t want to miss. If Razell brings to the presidency the same drive she has used to organize this conference, then hold your hats! We are going places!
Thank you for your support and I urge you to get involved with MAEA. Your voice will make our future!
MAEA Board Members – 2014-2015 (Term Expires)
President: Thelma Regan (2016)
Director Piscataquis Valley AE Collaborative
50 Mayo Street, Dover Foxcroft, ME 04426
207-564-6525
Past-President- Bill Grant (2015)
Director, Auburn Adult Education
77 Harris Street, Auburn, ME 04240
207-333-6661
President-Elect: Razell Ward (2017)
Director, MSAD 52 Adult and Community Education
486 Turner Center Road
Turner, ME 04282
207-225-3478
Treasurer: Allen Lampert (2015)
Director, Sanford Community Adult Education
21 Bradeen Street, Springvale ME 04083
207-490-5145
Secretary: Executive Director fills function of Board Secretary.
2014-15 Elected Board Members:
Brenda Gagne, Director, Noble Adult Education (2015)
388 Somersworth Rd, North Berwick ME 03906
207-676-3223
Bernadette Farrar, Asst. Director, Houlton/Hodgdon Adult Education (2015)
18 Military Street, Houlton ME 04730
207-521-3100, x 5
Lisa Robertson, ABE Coordinator, Windham/Raymond AE (2016)
406 Gray Road, Windham ME 04062
207-892-1819
Greg Leavitt, Director, Bangor Adult and Community Education (2016)
885 Broadway
Bangor, ME 04401
207-992-5522
Theresa Nelson, Assistant Director, Sanford Community Education (2015)
21 Bradeen Street, Springvale ME 04083
207-490-5145
Nancy Allen, Director, Region 9 Adult Education Learning Center (2016)
377 River Road
Mexico, ME 04257
207-364-2012
Appointed Members (2014-2015) (Additional appointments to be made by 9/14)
Zane Clement, Director Augusta Adult Education (2015)
33A Union Street, Augusta, ME 04330
207-626-2470
Jenny Rose, Director, RSU #16 Adult Education (2015)
P.O. Box 129, Mechanic Falls, ME 04256
207-345-3217
Susan Tuthill, Director Mid-Maine Regional Adult Community Education (2015)
One Brooklyn Avenue, Waterville, ME 04901
207-873-5754
Jennifer Tiner, Assistant Director, Lewiston Adult Education (2015)
156 East Avenue, Lewiston, ME, 04240
207-795-4141
Ray Therrien, Director Mt. Blue Adult Education (2015)
108 Fairbanks Road, Farmington ME 04938
207-778-3460
Tim Dresser, Director, Five Towns CSD Adult and Community Education (2015)
25 Keelson Drive, Camden ME 04856
207-236-7800 ext 275
Ex Officio:
Gail Senese, Maine Department of Education
23 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333
207-624-6755
Staff
Shirley Wright, Executive Director
841 North Road
Dover Foxcroft, ME 04426
207-564-3630 (office)
207-343-2157 (cell)
Action Team Chairs 2014-15:
Awards: Anne Kemper
College Transition: Bob McIntire, MDOE
Communication: Greg Leavitt
Conference 2015: Razell Ward
Corrections: Ray Therrien
Data: Kelley Heath, MDOE
Educational Programming and Assessment: Brenda Gagne
Elections: Razell Ward
Finance: Allen Lampert
Hall of Flags & Legislative: Zane Clement
Professional Development/Certification: Bill Grant
Scholarships: Greg Leavitt
Strategic Partners: Jen Tiner
Web Portal and Membership: Lisa Robertson
Workforce: Nancy Allen
MAEA Strategic Planning Retreat 2012-2013 Goals
1. GOAL: Maintain the current lobbying efforts and mobilize and build lobbying capacity in the field.
2. GOAL: Define and develop a plan that will increase MAEA’s visibility, effectiveness and branding and promote a uniform message that communicates the value of Adult Education.
3. GOAL: Increase Adult Education funding by various sources including grant writing.
4. GOAL: Continue to enhance and expand the capacity usage of the web portal.
5. GOAL: Meet with MDOE’s certification division to create an adult education teacher support and mentorship team. The team would have the ability to approve course work and competency checklists.
6. GOAL: Sustain and enhance technology for teaching and learning.
7. GOAL: Sustain and enhance technology for data collection allowing for streamlined reporting and enhanced decision-making.
8. GOAL: Form a working group to: assess professional and staff development needs, promote and communicate professional development offerings, and to evaluate the process and product.
9. Review all scholarship announcements, rubrics and related and revise as needed. Submit possible changes to the MAEA Board for approval at the January 2013 meeting.
The Board later added another goal: Create a task force on standardizing non-credit certificate programs for adult education career pathways that allows regional modification.
MAEA will hold a strategic planning meeting on August 11, 2015 in Augusta. At this time, new goals will be set for the upcoming year.
ACTION TEAM REPORTS
Awards 2014-2015, presented at Colby College, June 2015, Anne Kemper, Chair
Awards will be presented in the following categories: LeVasseur, Director, Teachers, Special Recognition, Support Staff at the Awards Luncheon on June 18th.
Communications/Marketing Action Team – Greg Leavitt, Chair
The Hall of Flags event was well attended this year. It was held on April 1. Many programs set up at the event, as all of the tables were full. Many legislators visited tables and stopped for photos with programs. Student speeches were very moving. Students from four adult education programs were able to tell their unique stories. We hope for an even larger turnout next year!
Conference 2014 Report – Thelma Regan, Chair
The 2014 conference was held at Colby College and was a wonderful success. The conference serves as valuable training for adult educators across the state and is the major income source that allows MAEA to exist. The pre-conference was centered around mathematics. Donna Curry provided a day-long presentation on the CCRS and mathematics. Over 100 people attended. The conference offered several quality workshops across a wide variety of topics. Participants were able to choose those areas that best fit their needs. We had a great response to the Call for Presenters. It was great to see so many adult educators gathered together, learning new skills for their programs and students.
ConnectME Authority ARRA Grant Final Report – Bob McIntire, MDOE
The Broadband Technical Assistance grant awarded to adult education programs by the ConnectME Authority ended January 31, 2015. The impact of the grant through professional development, community presentations and technology grants will be felt for years to come.
Here is a brief synopsis of the grant proceeds:
Teacher Stipends for participating in MARTI classes $ 17,000
Community Connection payments to adult education programs $167,500
provided for technology presentations in classes and to Maine
communities.
67 Technology Grants to 58 adult education programs $335,000
7 Technology Grants to Literacy Volunteer programs $ 17,500
Total funding from the National Telecommunication and $537,000
Information Administration
State match in salaries and expenses $127,500
Maine Learning Technology Initiative cash match $114,000
for trainer/mentors fees and teacher stipends
Total state contribution $241, 500
Grant Total Impact $778,590
Five online courses were created and are being updated for presentation in the 2015-2016 school year continuing the impact of the grant. In addition through the cooperation of the Maine Adult Education Association new video conference equipment was installed in the Distance Learning Classroom of the Cross Office Building in Augusta, great enhancing the capability of a facility used by mane departments and organizations.
Chart indicating total purchases from all grants.
* Notes:Amounts listed share how many grants stipulated a purchase of this type and does not reflect how many individual units were purchased. For instance, a program may have bought 20 licences of MS Office and 36 licences of Odysseyware. This was recorded as 2 software titles being purchased. Therefore, 37 software titles or subscriptions were reported, but each of those had variable quantities within each purchase.
Most Professional Services were for the installation of hardware. For example electricians for wiring or janitorial services for hanging projectors or smartboards.
Staff Wages were paid to staff members attending professional development centered around technologies purchased within the grant.
Interesting to note that if we remove the Staff Wages and Professional Services to compare all purchased technology to the amount of technology professional development we find that training for technology only represents 4.09% of purchases (not evaluating dollar values spent, only quantity of reported purchases). Over the many cycles of this grant 95.91% of programs’ efforts centered on acquisition of technology.
Interesting to note that fixed technologies like desktops and laptops accounted for 237 purchases while 136 purchases were for more portable technologies. The majority of these more portable options were purchased with more recent grant requests.
The graph above shares the percentage of programs that chose to purchase just fixed technologies (Desktops, laptops, smartboard…) vs more portable technologies (tablets and smartphones) and those programs that invested in both types.
When looking at the average quantities purchased by each program throughout all grants submitted, the following chart highlights how many programs had at least one grant purchase for each item listed. Additionally, an average number of units is reported as well. It is interesting to note that most individual technology device purchases averaged around 5 units per program. (yellow fields)
PC Desktops / PC Laptops / Apple Laptops / iPads / Other Tablets / Smart Phone / Smart Boards / Projectors / Monitors / Printer / Copiers / Audio Supplies / SoftwareTotals / 78 / 107 / 52 / 89 / 40 / 7 / 5 / 7 / 28 / 5 / 3 / 37
# Programs Purchasing / 14.00 / 25.00 / 10.00 / 17.00 / 9.00 / 1.00 / 5.00 / 6.00 / 5.00 / 4.00 / 3.00 / 29.00
Average # Purchased / 5.57 / 4.28 / 5.20 / 5.24 / 4.44 / 7.00 / 1.00 / 1.17 / 5.60 / 1.25 / 1.00 / 1.28
Reported Impacts of purchases made with grants:
Result Reported From Programs # Grants Citing this effect
Increased Facilitation of digital testing 18
(CASAS, HiSET, GED, …)
Increased Learner Access to Technology Learning Opportunities 23
Allowed for creation of new, local classes 7
Created new distance learning options for learners 7
Increased staff technology integration 7
Corrections – Ray Therrien, Chair
The Corrections Committee was made a separate committee, apart from the Strategic Partner’s Committee this year. Work has been done to encourage Corrections to become MAEA members in good standing this year. The committee has also removed the Corrections link on the portal due to cost and will set up a separate URL that will be linked on the MAEA homepage. This will save money each year. Work will continue in the upcoming year to solidify the partnership between Adult Education and the Department of Corrections.
Data Committee Report – Kelley Heath, MDOE
The State Report Card is a separate file attached to this report.
Educational Programming and Assessment – Brenda Gagne, Chair
This committee did not meet this year. The committee is looking for four new members and will develop goals based on MAEA's strategic plan.
Finance Action Team – Allen Lampert, Treasurer
Allen Lampert (Director at Sanford Community Adult Education) served as Treasurer for MAEA for the 2014-15 year. Over the past year, Allen and Shirley Wright (Executive Director) worked diligently to reorganize MAEA’s investment portfolio accounts with PAX and Putnam. Towards that end, they successfully transferred the investment portfolio to the management of Morgan Stanley who now manages both investment accounts on MAEA’s behalf. Consequently, MAEA now has immediate access to its investments.
Progress was also made to reorganize the budget process for MAEA towards a financial process that more accurately records and tracks grant expenditures. This will ensure more accurate planning for future budgets. Allen and Shirley have been working with Richard Mooney (CPA for MAEA) to design a budget for next year that reflects grant activities in more detail.
Finally, it is the goal of the Finance Team to create a budget where the final outcome is break-even. In the past, MAEA budgets have often drawn on investment interest to balance. By carefully examining each spending category and reorganizing specific budget lines, it is hoped MAEA can create a fully balanced budget moving forward.