The latest plan calls for one group of elementary schools to start at 8:20 a.m. and another group to start at 8:40. Middle schools would start at 7:55 a.m.
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.
Crowd of 100 marches on Portland City Hall to protest racism
Protesters, chanting ‘black lives matter,’ occupy the City Council chambers before marching to the police station.
Camden-based charity’s former leader to settle embezzlement case for $4.6 million
Russell Brace, who was president of United Mid-Coast Charities for 13 years, admits in the settlement to ‘theft of hundreds of donation checks.’
Breeanna Zoidis: ‘I preach to people: … Start at a community college.’
When Breeanna Zoidis of Casco headed off to college, she wanted to get out of Maine. So she enrolled at Elmira College in New York, where tuition, room and board are more than $51,000 a year. Even with a scholarship, two years there put her $40,000 in debt. Today, the older and wiser 24-year-old Zoidis […]
Dan Lambert: ‘You’ve just got to have a plan’
It started with a scholarship and the kernel of a plan. Dan Lambert had already been studying machining for two years as a high school student at the Biddeford Regional Center of Technology, and as a graduating senior faced a crossroads about what to do next. He knew he wanted an engineering degree. The question […]
Lahana Palencia: Choosing SMCC ‘was definitely a financial decision’
Lahana Palencia was like many graduating high school students: planning to go to college, not sure what she wanted to study and scared of racking up a lot of student debt while she figured it all out. “I graduated from (Pittsfield) high school an honors student. But I was like, I don’t know what I […]
More students using community college to save money on a four-year college education
Wary of debt, students pursuing higher education turn to one option that can be practically free, where they can learn a technical trade or use the school as a steppingstone on the path to a four-year degree.
Education panel rejects bills to make college more affordable for Mainers
Lawmakers say they want to focus on increasing overall education funding instead of supporting individual programs.
Education Committee votes to kill bills on UMaine System finances
The lawmakers say the bills, which would have earmarked funding, restored personnel cuts or required a state audit, were efforts to micromanage the system.
Portland school officials consider new start times
The school board will hold a hearing on middle school and elementary hours after parents balk at a plan.