The request comes amid a debate over a proposed bond issue to renovate four elementary schools.
Noel K. Gallagher
Noel Gallagher covers K-12 and higher education issues statewide. Her stories are a mix of breaking news and trend stories. In recent years, they’ve ranged from why college costs so much, the launch of the state’s first charter schools, how a school welcomed a transgender student and why Maine schools have a hard time finding teachers. She’s enough of a news nerd to enjoy sitting through legislative education committee meetings and hours-long school board meetings so you don’t have to.
The Maine Press Association has honored Noel’s work, but she says she writes for the readers, in the firm belief that an informed citizenry is key to a healthy democracy.
Noel is a California native who has worked at wire services, online websites and newspapers across the country. She was in Washington D.C. during the early Clinton years, covering AIDS activism in 1990s San Francisco, documenting the business of wine in Sonoma County and riding out the boom and bust cycle of the early Internet era in early 2000s Silicon Valley. She arrived in Maine at the beginning of the recession and wrote quite a bit about the downturn here.
In her free time, Noel writes the occasional cookbook review, spends an inordinate amount of time at the Portland Public Library and hangs out with her three fabulous kids and wonderful husband. She is not a former member of the band Oasis.
LePage administration offers incentives for school districts to share programs
The Maine Department of Education will distribute grants to districts that find areas where they can partner with other schools to save money.
In memoriam 2016: Remembering those we lost in Maine
America’s cultural landscape suffered a string of prominent losses in 2016, and in Maine we lost an array of artists and cultural icons, local heroes and environmental champions.
Press Herald columnist died of gunshot wound to neck
Michael D. Harmon was killed Wednesday at his Sanford home when a handgun he was showing a teenage visitor went off.
Town of Dixfield shuts down police force over personnel issue
The department’s two members are put on paid administrative leave amid a probe of what a union official says relates to what the chief does during work hours.
Standish family shares story of a young, once-promising life lost to schizophrenia
John ‘JT’ Norton, who died at 27, was a bright child and an athlete with lots of friends until the disease took over.
Snowmobilers found safe after getting separated, stranded overnight in northern Maine
Two women spend the night trailside, and a third who went for help ran out of gas, the Maine Warden Service says.
Investors envision 96 homes on what is likely Portland’s largest undeveloped lot
The Camelot Farm property encompasses 45 acres and 1,500 feet of frontage on the Stroudwater River.
How much? Q&A on Portland school construction
Some history and facts about the city’s schools.
Report: Portland schools will need $321 million in upkeep over next 20 years
The capital-needs report comes as officials debate a $70 million bond to improve four elementary schools.