Maine Teacher of Year award goes to Portland educator

Casco Bay High School’s Matthew Bernstein has been named Maine Teacher of the Year. Bernstein teaches teaches ninth-grade humanities and social studies at the Portland school.

Bernstein

“Today we celebrate Mr. Bernstein’s love of teaching, his dedication to his students, and his leadership role in education,” Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin said. “Mr. Bernstein’s students and colleagues at Casco Bay High School have described him as energizing, empowering, inclusive, a mentor, supportive, patient and loving.”

He has a bachelor’s degree in history, with a concentration on European history, from Bowdoin College and is 2022’s Cumberland County Teacher of the Year. He recently was named a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar, taking part in a seminar called “Teaching the Holocaust through Visual Culture.” Outside the classroom, he plays or coaches soccer and basketball.

Bernstein will represent Maine in the National Teacher of the Year program.

Region 10 Tech teacher receives top honor

Region 10 Technical High School’s Jean Palmer has been named 2022 Teacher of the Year by the Maine Administrators of Career and Technical Education.

From left, Maine Administrators of Career and Technical Education President Julie Kenny, State of Maine CTE Director Dwight Littlefield, MACTE Teacher of the Year Jean Palmer, Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin and Executive Director of MACTE David Keaton. Contributed/MACTE

Palmer has taught creative digital media at Region 10 in Brunswick for 4½ years.

Speaking MACTE conference Oct. 7,  President Julie Kenny quoted from the nomination of Palmer by Paul Perzanoski, Region 10’s former superintendent/director, who said, “ Having observed Jean’s teaching firsthand on many occasions, and having seen the impact she’s had on both her program and our school community as a whole, it is without exaggeration that I say that she is among the most talented, dedicated, and extraordinary educators I’ve ever experienced in my many decades as an educator.”

Palmer “turned a half-time program struggling to attract students into Region 10’s most sought-after and highly enrolled program, Kenny added.