The challenge of recruiting and retaining teachers in Maine is profound. The state pays teachers the least out of its New England counterparts and faces a dwindling workforce as teachers age and younger workers are not entering the field fast enough.

“Everyone knows it’s one of the fields where you are overworked and underpaid and underappreciated,” said Zachary Guiod, who is in training to become a teacher. “You go into the field knowing that.”

Guiod is a participant in the Maine Teacher Residency project, which offers tuition assistance and mentorship. The project is seeking additional funding from the legislature this session to continue operating, one of a handful of bills that aim to tackle the workforce shortage from a variety of angles: boosting pay, providing early career support, mentorship and the ability to expand conditional teaching certificates.

Addressing workforce shortages has to be a “multi-pronged approach,” Guiod said. 

“I want Maine to have the most qualified teachers,” Guiod said. “I think this residency program definitely helps with that aspect, but I think it’s one piece of the puzzle.”

Getting young teachers into schools 

Sen. Teresa Pierce (D-Cumberland) put forth two initiatives this session that aim to tackle the teacher shortage, both of which she described as tried-and-true methods to building Maine’s teaching force.

The first bill would bolster the Maine Teacher Residency project that supports Guiod with $1 million from the General Fund. The University of Maine System initiative, which started as a pilot in Biddeford during the pandemic, has been “wildly successful,” Pierce said. 

The Biddeford School District told News Center Maine in 2022 that the program helped attract qualified teachers and retain staff. Since then, the project expanded to more than 30 Maine school districts, including Aroostook County. The initiative has reportedly aided over 100 residency teachers and boasts of a 79 percent rate of certification completion and employment in the program. 

While the University of Maine System spearheads the initiative, it brings on students from various colleges and new emergency or conditionally-certified teachers. Participating students receive $3,500 in tuition assistance each year while they teach in schools. Students also get mentorship and guidance from veteran teachers, who are also paid a yearly stipend of $3,000.

One school district, RSU 23 in Old Orchard Beach, described participants from the project as a “win-win” for all parties involved.

“I think that it’s beneficial for every district,” said RSU 23 superintendent John Suttie. “If you can afford it — you’ve got to be able to budget the money in order to support them and work with the university in order to help them meet the needs of the students and the needs of the school. It’s a way to attract new people to the profession and allow people to get a high degree of training before beginning their actual teaching career.”

Ben Harris, the principal of an elementary school within the school district, said that his school is fully staffed for the first time since the pandemic, thanks in part to the project. However, it helps to have a supportive school community, great benefits for teachers, and new pay contracts underway.

“If anything, the secret sauce is a pinch of this, a dash of that. So the residency program is certainly part of that,” he said.

An initial round of one-time, congressionally directed federal funds of $989,000 in the 2022 fiscal year sustained the program’s expansion and operations for two years. When federal funds ran out, Pierce secured $200,000 in funding during the last legislative session for the project.

As that second bout of funding dwindles, Pierce hoped that this next bill will keep the program up and running for another two or three years.

A majority of the funding for the program is spent on funding teachers, according to Maine Teacher Residency Director Flynn Ross. The initiative spent about $150,500 in tuition assistance for teachers in training, and $141,000 in stipends to veteran teachers in the 2023-2024 school year, based on its stipend model and participation data from the Residency program.

While the Maine Teacher Residency is a great program, said Ross, who is also a professor and chair of the Teacher Education Department at USM, the state could benefit from more “induction support” for early career teachers within their first five years of service, which she said will make teachers more likely to stay in the field for decades to come.

Another bill on the table this session also aimed at new educators, L.D. 470, would require all schools to have mentoring programs for early-career teachers. Sponsored by Sen. Joe Rafferty (D-York) the bill would also provide a stipend of $5,000 a year for mentoring teachers who have held a certificate in Maine for five years or more.

Raising teacher pay

While the residency program has been successful, the number one reason young people aren’t going into the field in Maine is because pay is low, said Pierce, who has introduced another bill, L.D. 34, that would ramp up the minimum teacher salary to $50,000 over the course of the next five years.

A previous version of the bill passed unanimously last session, Pierce said, but died on the appropriations table. 

During an initial hearing for the bill, multiple educators and education organizations testified in support. Some noted personal stories of how pay was hindering teachers from living stable lives. The last time the legislature raised the minimum wage for teachers was more than five years ago, to $40,000.

Some educators pointed out that while raising the pay is a good step to maintaining a workforce, it may not be enough if the cost of living keeps rising. Some also suggested moving away from teacher pay scales, or even having counties who better know their cost of living to set their own minimum pay. 

Currently, teacher pay is tied to a payscale based on seniority, which some argue discourages young teachers from entering the field. According to contract data that the Maine Education Association collected in 2024, most Maine school districts had a starting pay slightly above the current $40,000 minimum for K-12 teachers.

Reducing barriers to certification

Sen. Jim Libby (R-Cumberland), who co-sponsored both of Pierce’s bills, has also put forward what he sees as a needed workforce-boosting initiative. 

L.D. 369 would grant the Maine Education Commissioner leeway to extend conditional teaching certificates, which currently only last for three years, and are issued in the event an applicant is missing some requirements for a full certification.

According to the bill, the commissioner could extend a conditional certificate in the case of extenuating circumstances, such as during a public health emergency or if an applicant couldn’t fulfill the remaining requirements needed to get a full certification because of personal illness. Applicants seeking extension would need to provide “supporting documentation” such as a doctor’s note or request from a school superintendent. 

The legislation would also allow the commissioner to grant conditional certificates to a full-time professor of five years and prohibit a fee for fingerprinting applicants.

Though the language of the bill is broad, Libby explained that the goal is to get those willing to teach into the classroom. He also acknowledged that not all parts of the bill were received well when it was introduced into the committee early March.

A representative for the Maine Education Association criticized the bill, stating in her testimony that the bill does not specify the duration for extending certificates, and that extending certificates could not only pose a risk to student performance but also present an administrative challenge for the Department of Certification.

Libby said he understands professors and K-12 teachers do not do the same type of teaching. Still, he believes the initiative is worth considering, especially for professors who previously had teaching certificates that lapsed.

“We really are struggling with labor and this was one way — it’s a small way — to try to help with that situation,” Libby said. 

He argued in a work session on Wednesday that the aim is to “loosen up” some of the impediments in the certification process and that he trusts the commissioner to ask for the evidence necessary to award the appropriate certificates.

Libby also proposed an amendment to allow the commissioner to extend a professional teacher certificate to someone with five years of experience in public schools who has had an active certificate in the past, or to issue a lifetime certificate to those with doctorates who have continuously worked in education.

Philomena McPhee, a professor who has taught education at a few Maine colleges, said that she was going to have to pay about $500 and complete 90 Continuing Education Units — a nationally recognized way of measuring and maintaining a teacher’s skill set — to renew her multiple certifications in Maine. 

McPhee, who said she has been an educator since 1969, argued that the qualifications required for recertification are outdated.

“I have continuously taught, and I am in good standing; I have a doctorate and second master’s. And the requirement to do 90 CEU’s has no indication of my teaching ability,” she told The Maine Monitor.

Many qualified teachers may allow licenses to lapse because of the hassle, said McPhee. Renewing any educator license in Maine, which can cover administrative or teaching roles, can be costly; teachers must pay $100 for each application and then additional fees of $35 for endorsement, or a subject area that an educator can teach, according to the Maine Department of Education website.

The state offers conditional certificates to teachers who have applied for a full certification but are missing requirements that can be fulfilled during a three-year period.

There were 4,165 active conditional certificates as of mid-March, according to the Department of Education, which represents between four and six percent of all teaching certificates based on department data from the past five years. Maine also issues emergency certifications for fields that are in demand, such as special education, and can issue a waiver of teaching requirements for certifications. 

Committee members voted on March 19 to continuously fund the residency program for $500,000 annually; the bill will still have to pass the full legislature and the appropriations committee. The other bills — L.D. 369 and L.D. 34 — have been tabled.

While the legislative process is ongoing, Maine Teacher Residency’s Flynn Ross emphasized that to build and retain a workforce, teachers need financial and career support. A family’s income and level of parental education has the greatest impact on student achievement, said Ross. 

“But the greatest in-school factor in student achievement is teacher quality,” Ross said. “…Helping ensure that teachers are prepared and supported for the classroom ensures the strengths of schools as institutions.”

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit civic news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.