Maine/Teaching? (Portland, Brunswick, Kittery: 2015, homes, teaching jobs)

[mikebchipper]

Hi everyone, we're a gay couple in our 40s hoping to relocate to Maine once Covid slows down (hopefully), but we are curious about what teaching is like in Maine since we are both educators? We have lived in the southern, midwestern, and western regions of the US and we have been in Canada for several years, so teaching is teaching anywhere you go basically, but are there enough teaching jobs along Coastal Maine?

We would like to be near the coast anywhere from Kittery up to the Acadia region. We are looking at the Portland region since we are a gay couple and want to be near an LGBTQ community, but we're open to smaller towns like Freeport, Brunswick, Camden, etc. We are currently living in Canada so we are used to long winters, but we want to be closer to our family in Rhode Island (we're US citizens anxiously waiting to see what happens with the election, too). We visited Maine several times over the years and can't stop thinking about how we enjoyed our time there and feel like Maine is calling us to settle down for good there.

Thank you for your help!

[phoebesmom]

Since you are teachers, make sure to check into how teaching in the public school system will impact future social security benefit--see https://maineea.org/ready-to-retire-...need-to-know/:

"I didn’t always work in education and contribute to MainePERS. I used to have another job and I contributed to Social Security. Will that affect my pension benefit?

No. You will still receive your pension, as long as you are vested. However, your Social Security payment will likely be lower due to the fact that you are also receiving money from a pension. This may not be true for certain PLDs, but is the case for all enrolled in the Teacher Retirement Plan. Your Social Security benefit will also be decreased if you take a private sector job and contribute to Social Security after you retire from your public sector job. The reduction is known as the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) which again, reduces the Social Security benefits of workers who also have pension benefits from employment not covered by Social Security. You are eligible to receive Social Security benefits after you’ve worked for 10 or more years (40 quarters {4 quarters in a year}) in a Social Security eligible job. Social Security benefits received by those who also receive a pension are impacted on a sliding scale, depending on how many years you’ve contributed to Social Security. The chart below highlights the reduction in benefits due to the Windfall Elimination based on years of Social Security Coverage:

Years of Social Security Coverage Maximum Monthly Reduction due to
Windfall Elimination (for those
62 Years old in 2015)
20 or less
$413
21 $371.70
22 $330.40
23 289.10
24 $247.80
25 $206.50
26 $165.20
27 $123.90
28 $82.60
29 $41.30
30 $0
*Important: The maximum amount may be overstated. The WEP reduction is limited to one-half of your pension from non-covered employment.
Source: Social Security Administration, How the Windfall Elimination Provision Can Affect Your Social Security Benefit, Washington, D.C."

[Demolitionman2]

Good luck getting ANY job in education in Maine. My wife got her degree in education there, had prior experience as a para-educator and all she could get was a job in a private school being the director of the education dept. And THAT was only so they could have someone to cover the position until the closed the department without notice 6 months later. When my wife went looking around and inquiring for education positions in the pre-school-K range, she was told by several entities that "Oh we don't post our positions out. We just give them to people we know." Or as one co-worker in the with a degree in the education field told me "There are this many teaching jobs in Maine ______ and this many people competing for those jobs _________________________. Get the point. That said, good luck and you'd probably have better luck in the southern part of the state where there are more schools.

[Submariner]

We have a close friend [Kathy] who taught public school down in NJ. Kathy is a conservative. When she had taught long enough to qualify for tenure down there the union denied her tenure. So she transferred to a different school district and taught there, when she had been working there long enough to qualify for tenure that district also denied her tenure. After working as a school teacher long enough to qualify for tenure, twice, and having been denied tenure both times, she moved to Maine, in 2010.

Maine schools have not hired Kathy, she is working as a private tutor with homeschooled children.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

My wife was valedictorian from her high school, *** laude from two colleges, had her master's in education, tenured Regents Diploma educator in New York State and applied for a vacancy in Maine when we came home. The school's first question was, "What can you coach?"

She said she could coach debate, expository speaking and contemporaneous speaking. They were not interested in anything like that. She was the New England speaking champion, but her family could not afford to send her to the nationals.

We have retired military officers, engineers and other professionals returning to Maine when they retire, many with advanced degrees. They want to teach the next generation and expose them to the vast number of opportunities in our great nation. The most important requirement the applicant must meet is to take three excruciating "methods" courses. One colonel described it as a year in SERE School. That is "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" Few people age 50 and above with a life of valuable experience can tolerate those courses.

When my wife arrived with her golden resume, she had to take those excruciating methods courses because the similar courses she had taken in the past were taken in New Hampshire and Florida and New York. Maine requires that those courses be repeated in a very short list of Maine schools. When they ran out of reasons she should not be hired and parents flooded the school board meeting, the district hired her. She was the only one in the system with a master's. Not even the acting superintendent had a master's. This was over 30 years ago, but up here in the woods, not much has changed.

[phoebesmom]

From things I have read, it looks like substitute teaching would not impact someone coming in from out of state, as you are not part of the retirement system. Does anyone have experience with that in Maine?

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Back when I was substituting in 1991, it was $25 a day. Now it's $85 a day.

[phoebesmom]

Thank you for that info!

[G1..]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

My wife was valedictorian from her high school, *** laude from two colleges, had her master's in education, tenured Regents Diploma educator in New York State and applied for a vacancy in Maine when we came home. The school's first question was, "What can you coach?"

She said she could coach debate, expository speaking and contemporaneous speaking. They were not interested in anything like that. She was the New England speaking champion, but her family could not afford to send her to the nationals.

We have retired military officers, engineers and other professionals returning to Maine when they retire, many with advanced degrees. They want to teach the next generation and expose them to the vast number of opportunities in our great nation. The most important requirement the applicant must meet is to take three excruciating "methods" courses. One colonel described it as a year in SERE School. That is "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" Few people age 50 and above with a life of valuable experience can tolerate those courses.

When my wife arrived with her golden resume, she had to take those excruciating methods courses because the similar courses she had taken in the past were taken in New Hampshire and Florida and New York. Maine requires that those courses be repeated in a very short list of Maine schools. When they ran out of reasons she should not be hired and parents flooded the school board meeting, the district hired her. She was the only one in the system with a master's. Not even the acting superintendent had a master's. This was over 30 years ago, but up here in the woods, not much has changed.

Have things changed ?

https://www.portlandschools.org/depa..._opportunities

[Snowmon]

I am good friends with a middle school principal and myself work, in Maine, for a non-profit with many semi-retired teachers and administrators. Maine has a teacher shortage. I have never heard of what any of the above folks are talking about, maybe years ago, but right now =Teacher shortage. COVID has made things a bit off with hiring, but before that the administrators I know constantly complained about it being hard to find good teachers to hire.
Visit the FAME Maine website, they list the teacher shortage content areas. We need good teachers!