Foundations of Education #272

Kate Snyder:

So as we contemplated an independent foundation for Portland's public schools, we did a lot of research and looked around the country and around Maine and found examples of education foundations that were really doing amazing work to support the public schools.

Gabe Weiss:

We've done a wide variety of things ranging from bringing iPads to classrooms in the kindergarten and first grade to bringing artists in residence to the high school. A big one that we just funded last year is a shellfish upweller. So that's a structure that essentially cultivates CL and it's down at the town landing. And so we have students who are studying the clams, their growth cycle and then we'll be reintroducing them into the clam Flats of Yarmouth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 272, Foundations of Education, airing for the first time on Sunday, December 4, 2016. How do we give our students a full and rich educational experience? Maine is known for its exceptional schools, dedicated teachers and administrators. Recently, community members have started engaging with their school systems through education foundations, which fund additional enrichment activities. Today we speak with Kate Snyder, executive director of the Portland Education foundation, and Gabe Weiss, president of the Yarmouth Education Foundation. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As listeners of Love Maine Radio know, we are big fans of education here at the radio show and at Maine Magazine. And today I have with me another big fan of education. This is Kate Snyder, who serves as the executive director of the Portland Education Foundation. The foundation is an independent nonprofit corporation whose mission is to raise philanthropic support for the Portland Public Schools. Kate is responsible for leadership and management of the day to day operations, including fundraising, marketing, and facilitating program development and implementation as envisioned by the board. Thanks so much for coming in today.

Kate Snyder:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is very impressive work that you are doing with the Portland Public Schools. I wonder for those people who aren't familiar with education foundations, what is it that you do?

Kate Snyder:

Well, if you look around Maine and if you look beyond Maine, you'll see that there are lots of education foundations that are established to help bring community support in for the public school systems. So not at all unusual to have a foundation that supports A K through 12 public school system and looks to garner support from companies, businesses, corporations, foundations and individuals within the community. So as we contemplated an independent foundation for Portland's public schools, we did a lot of research and looked around the country and around Maine and found examples of education foundations that were really doing amazing work to support the public schools.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, having grown up myself in the largely the 80s, I guess there wasn't a lot of work being done with education foundations that I'm recalling. Where did this phenomenon come from?

Kate Snyder:

Well, I don't know exactly where it came from. I do know that a town that I grew up in outside of Cleveland has had an education foundation since the mid-80s. And so I was able to study that model and get a sense of what they in particular are in business to do. And what I learned was that this is a community that's outside of Cleveland and they recognized that there was an opportunity to harness support from Cleveland based businesses of which there are a lot. And so they bring in a significant amount of revenue annually to support programs within the school district that they support. And so again, as we contemplated this for Portland, there were discussions around the table with regard to are there opportunities for support for the public schools that we can tap into that haven't yet been tapped in into. So we know that individual schools, PTOs, they do an amazing job gaining support from the community that they serve. We know that there are booster clubs that support arts and athletics, and in Portland, there are a couple of other fundraising entities as well. There's the multilingual and multicultural department that does some of its own fundraising, and we have Portland Adult Ed that does some fundraising. But as a district as a whole, are there opportunities to bring support for the whole school System, K through 12? And our answer was yes, that not every business has been approached from a system perspective to say, here we are as Portland's public schools. We're looking to benefit all the schools, all the students, K through 12. We're working closely with district administration and we'd like to ask for your support in a way that hasn't been asked for in the in the past. And the response has been very good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You served on the Portland Board of public education from 2007 to 2013, and you were the board chair for two consecutive terms and the chair of the Finance committee. So you have quite a lot of background in the education field. Why did this interest you?

Kate Snyder:

Well, first of all, I have three children who have attended Portland's public schools. And so just from a consumer perspective, I've seen how excellent the Portland Public Schools are and what a wonderful job they do with such a diverse group of students. And I've been impressed at every stop along the way. As a member of the Portland Board of Public Education, I saw kind of from a macro perspective how difficult budgeting can be in this large school district with so many student needs. And there's a formula that's called the essential programs and services formula. And the state works against that formula and there's federal money that comes in against that formula, but that doesn't address things like arts and athletics. It doesn't support some of the, what some people like to call extras, but I don't believe they're extras. I believe that a student's experience is made richer by all sorts of exposure because you never quite know what's going to trigger a student's interest and passion. And so I guess having a seat at the board table, the school board table, gave me an opportunity to see how the school district does its budgeting and where there are opportunities for engagement. And so I think that the foundation is a perfect fit for Portland schools. Portland does a really amazing job with our teachers and ed techs and all the school based staff interacting daily with students who have, you know, needs all along the spectrum just like any other school district. But it's those areas of kind of extra where I think any school district struggles. It's the athletics and the arts and the things that happen in the classroom that might not be included in the regular operating budget. So one of the things that Portland Education foundation does is a teacher grants program. And this is a direct to teacher relationship where a teacher can apply for funding up to $1,000 to Portland Education foundation and they're looking for funds to support an initiative that is based in the classroom. So we think that that is a great way to affect teaching and learning and really get right to the source. Who knows better how to spend money than a teacher who's in A classroom with kids all day long. And so Portland Education foundation feels really great about that opportunity to not only support some of the bigger district wide initiatives when it comes to some of those other things, but to go directly to the teacher and provide funding for things that they don't have in their budget, but they know will help move the needle for some kids in their classroom.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Give me examples of some of the things that you funded.

Kate Snyder:

Okay. So just last year, a teacher at Hall School put together a program where the kids were learning about birds. And so I think it was a science unit, but she was able to expand it beyond just science and have it touch language arts and other areas as well, like art, for example. So with a grant from Portland Education foundation, she was able to buy some books, bring in a speaker who was talking about birds, work with the art teacher to create paper mache birds, and they were able to visit the Audubon. So really there was a. It was a. It was a program that was made richer by the. The addition of some funds that allowed the teacher to do some extra things that may not have otherwise been possible.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How long has the Portland Education foundation been in existence?

Kate Snyder:

Well, that's an interesting question. In 1992, a 501C3 was incorporated in Portland, and it was called the Portland Partnership. And the mission of that nonprofit corporation was community engagement and parent volunteerism. And that nonprofit group worked for a period of time within the Portland Public schools. And in 2009, that group went through some changes. And so the board of that group sort of took the 501C3 charter and started the Portland Education Foundation. And it was a group of volunteers who served on that nonprofit board who were looking to work closely with the district, who wanted to help raise money for the district. But there was a lot of waiting involved. And so what happened was in 2013, a resolution was passed by the school board and it called for the creation of the Budget and Revenue Advisory Task Force. And the Budget and Revenue Advisory Task Force was put together by the superintendent at the time, who was Manny Kock. And that group of folks. It was 12 or 13 members of the community who had no relationship with the school district other than being maybe parents or members of the community. So it wasn't teachers, educators, administrators. It was folks who were asked to come to the table because they had expertise in one area or another. And they came together and looked critically at the budget for Portland's public schools, and they looked at how Portland does its budgeting process. And they were there to be a critical friend. And they made some recommendations for improvement and they asked some interesting questions and they issued a report in March of 2014. And so that report had a central recommendation, and that recommendation was to create a. That it said Portland ought to have its own nonprofit foundation that generates support for Portland's public schools. And so what happened was the report was issued, it was put on the superintendent's desk. The superintendent looked at it and said, this is great work by a lot of folks in the community who gave their time and have something to say and we really need to pay attention. And so at about that point in time, summer of 2014, the superintendent pulled together some folks and I was one of them. And he said, how are we going to do this and what are we going to do? And so the cliff notes on this are that over about a year worth of time, we were able to take the recommendations from that task force and merge them with the existing 501C3, so that there was a vision for moving this path forward in the way that we have it today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I don't want you to get into particulars because obviously there may be some information that is sensitive or complex, but what type of, in broad terms, what type of money are you talking about here?

Kate Snyder:

So I think that's a great question. And in Portland, given that we really only have one full year under our belts, it's a question that we're asking every day and looking to answer every day. So our task is to generate philanthropic support for Portland's public schools. And we are looking to do that in three ways. Through individual support, through corporate support, and with the help of foundations. And whether that money comes in as a $10 contribution from an individual or a $20,000 grant from a foundation, we are looking to help move the needle in Portland's public schools for teachers and students. And so, as I said, we just finished up our first fiscal year. So we're about to publish Our fiscal year 16 annual report. And the dollars that have been brought in in FY16 are in the range of $328,000. And if you look at the report, you can, you can see the breakdown and how that money was spent. The foundation is raising money against specific initiatives that have been identified by the district. And we're so lucky in Portland to have three ex officio members on our board. So the Portland Education foundation has the superintendent as a member of the board. And we also always have a member of the teachers union and the principal's union. So we have three voices at the table that are direct links to the school district. And we think that that's so important. We also have a school board policy on the books so that the school board is aware of the existence of the education foundation and the relationship is made clear through that policy. So instead of the foundation board sitting around and talking about what we think ought to be funded within Portland's public schools, we work very closely with district based staff to understand the priorities of the district and make sure that what we're raising money for aligns closely with the goals of the district. And so of course, the decisions for what to fund happen with all 12 board members at the table. But like I said, the voice of the principal, the teacher and the superintendent are there helping to guide that decision making. And I think it's so important.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

From what I understand, there is one, I guess, very interesting and creative initiative that has been going on through a partnership with the Portland Education foundation and that has been the Culture Club Portland

Kate Snyder:

Education foundation is the fiscal agent for Culture Club Portland. And Culture Club Portland is a consortium of arts organizations in Portland. It's the Portland Museum of Art, Portland Stage, the Symphony Orchestra and and Portland Ovations. And those four arts organizations work with Portland's public schools to provide access to all students K through 12 to arts experiences. We are in our fourth year right now and Culture Club Portland was triggered by the incredible generosity of an anonymous donor who worked with the arts organizations to promote arts access for kids in Portland, recognizing that there are world class arts programming that is right around the corner from so many of our schools in Portland. But not all students may have access to those institutions. And so the goal of the program is that each Child K through 12 in Portland's public schools will have at least one point of access with each one of the arts organizations every year that they're a student. And so ideally, each student goes to an arts organization four times every year that they're a student in Portland's public schools.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So given that your organization has been around for a little bit more than a year in its current form, and the Culture Club has been around for four years, I'm assuming that some sort of evolution is taking place as far as the funding and administration of this, what is that going to look like?

Kate Snyder:

Yeah, so PEF stepped in about a year ago as partner at the table to work with both the arts organizations and the school district to help identify opportunities for improvement and also sustainability. And so this past year we pulled together a group called the Culture Club Portland Ad Hoc Committee. And what this group did Was they looked at, where are we now? So we had a principal at the table and a teacher at the table. We had some parents, we had folks from central office at the school district, and also people from the arts organizations. And the questions before us had to do with what are we doing, how are we doing it, how can we improve? And so that group actually yielded a report that generated 10 recommendations for improvement. And all of those recommendations are being acted on right now. So how do we improve communications between the arts organizations and the schools? How do we get more kids accessing the arts organizations against the goal? So it's an incredible opportunity in Portland and the school district sees it, the arts organizations see it, and everybody's at the table. One role that PEF is playing is to try to continue to keep folks together at the table to talk about funding sustainability. And so we now have a steering committee that's working together to identify what are the needs financially moving forward and how are we going to meet those needs. And so I mentioned earlier that there's an anonymous donor who has helped to support Culture Club Portland. And just recently in the news, it was announced that we have kind of a pathway forward that anticipates future funding. So in this current year, there's $200,000 to support culture Club funding as there has been in the last couple of years. Next year there's going to be $150,000 worth of funding, and the following year, $100,000 worth of funding. So we're so lucky to have a Runway in front of us so that we can see over the next couple of years how we need to ramp up additional funding to round out the funding that supports Culture Club Portland. And then beyond that, how do we move forward so that we're not doing, you know, fundraising here and there for, for all the years to come? Ideally, we create some kind of an endowment or a plan for funding that allows Culture Club Portland to grow and be sustained within the school's school district.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's not an unusual occurrence that an organization or an individual donor would make a significant donation and then do it in kind of a step down way so that it kind of gets things started and then it allows other funds to come in and replace what is no longer being donated.

Kate Snyder:

That's right. Actually, that's one of the big challenges, I think, associated with this kind of work is every year the funding is new funding. And so Culture Club is a little bit unique in our realm because we do have that Runway. We can see one source of funding and where it's going to go over the next couple of years. But every year that we're generating funds for the teacher grant program, for example, it's new every year. And so just because an individual or a corporation or a foundation gave us money in this fiscal year, it doesn't mean that's going to happen next year. And so we have to make sure that we're developing the relationships and we're cultivating the relationships and that we're making, making sure that the donors feel that they're valued and that their money is being well used. Every year is a new year. And so you may be lucky enough to get some multi year grants or some multi year gifts, but I don't think that we can count on that. And so we're always building strategies against the year we're in and then the years to come.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How much do you work with other local education foundations? I know that Cape Elizabeth has had a well established one for quite some time. Yarmouth, Cumberland, Falmouth. Do you have conversations with people who were involved in those education foundations?

Kate Snyder:

Well, during the research phase of how to establish Portland's education foundation, we did have some conversations and we tried to do some information gathering and some learning about how different education foundations structure themselves and work with the school district and engage their community. And so we were lucky enough to be able to reach out to communities around us and ask some questions. But we also reached out beyond Maine and looked for cities that look a little bit like Portland in terms of demographic makeup and size and tried to get a sense of some of the strategies that are employed in those places. And so I would say that there were a half a dozen or so models that we really studied and tried to pick and choose what we thought would work best for Portland. With only one year under our belt, we've been pretty Portland focused. And part of that, I think, has to do with the fact that the school system in Portland is quite big. And as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of fundraising already happening within Portland's public schools. So we have many elementary schools, three middle schools, three high schools, an arts and technology school, adult ed and multilingual. So we've got a pretty big umbrella that is Portland Public Schools. And so we're right now we're working to make sure that we're fitting within the fundraising landscape in Portland appropriately and in a way that feels like a support to the whole district and that everybody understands.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What types of, of responses have you gotten from the people that have benefited,

Kate Snyder:

like the teachers who have received grants. So very positive responses. I think that anytime that there is capacity brought to the school district in terms of funding that helps educators do what they do, it's positively received. The thing is that educators aren't employed to raise money. They're employed to engage with students and teach students. And so the money for the budget comes in through the district and the superintendent manages the budget process. And so anytime there are additional funds to bring to the table, everybody from the superintendent all the way through the ranks of the school district, I think are happy to know that that's available and forthcoming.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, this has been very interesting for me and I appreciate that people are out in the community working with the public school systems in various capacities. I think it's great whenever we can bring whatever it is that we do best ourselves and bring it to the table so that it can benefit our children, the teachers and the people who work within the school system. So I thank you Kate for coming in today. We've been speaking with kids who serves as the Executive Director of the Portland Education foundation, which is an independent nonprofit corporation whose mission is to raise philanthropic support for the Portland Public Schools. I congratulate you on one year of being done officially in this capacity. But I see bright things ahead and I hope that things continue to go well for you and the foundation.

Kate Snyder:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

have with me Gabe Weiss who is the President of the Yarmouth Education Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to enriching the overall educational experience of students in the Yarmouth School Department. Thanks for coming in today.

Gabe Weiss:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you live in my hometown. I obviously benefited from a Yarmouth education and my children benefited from and and are benefiting from Yarmouth Education. Tell me why you got involved.

Gabe Weiss:

Well, education is important to me. My parents are both teachers and so I grew up in an academic family. And so when I moved to Yarmouth, I was looking to get involved and do some kind of community service and found out about the Yarmouth Education Foundation. Met with the executives of the foundation and just really hit it off and thought that the mission was a wonderful one. And so I just volunteered my time initially and then was asked to join the board and then a few years later asked to become the president.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is a relatively young foundation as education foundations go.

Gabe Weiss:

That's right. I think we're in our sixth year now, so we still have one founder who's on the board and a few other founders who are still involved. But really, yeah, the founders are still around town in Yarmouth and they all have children who are still in the school system. So it's nice to be able to actually see these people who really did all the hard work to get it off the ground and it really is doing well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You and I were just talking about the most recent fundraiser, which is the Blue Jean Ball.

Gabe Weiss:

Correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is there a different name? I want to make sure we get it right for the people who want to go next year.

Gabe Weiss:

It historically has always been the Blue Jean Ball. The idea being that this is Maine, this is Yarmouth, and so we want to do something casual, not too fancy. Don't want people to feel like they have to get dressed up. But it is our big fundraiser. It is our only fundraiser event of the year. This year we called it the Blue Jean Disco because it was a disco theme and we had Motor Booty Affair play as our band.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you said you managed to get 280 bodies into the Amvets Hall.

Gabe Weiss:

That's right. We almost hit the 300 person capacity. So we had a really successful event. I think we grossed almost $70,000. I'm not sure what the net came out to be, but yeah, a lot of people. We had a silent auction with a lot of heavy bidding and really it was good to see everyone turn out from the community.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What types of initiatives has the education foundation spearheaded or gotten behind in the past for the school system?

Gabe Weiss:

We've done a wide variety of things ranging from bringing iPads to classrooms in kindergarten and first grade to bringing artists in residence to the high school. A big one that we just funded last year is a shellfish upweller. So that's a structure that essentially cultivates clams and it's down at the town landing. And so we have students who are studying the clams. They're, you know, growth cycle and then we'll be reintroducing them into the clam flats of Yarmouth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now that's interesting and unique. I was aware of the artist in residence and I think the iPads is a great idea. How did you come up with the shellfish Upweller?

Gabe Weiss:

So this is really our great teachers in the Yarmouth school. I mean we depend on them to bring forward interesting and innovative grant ideas. The teachers who brought this one forward are Morgan Cuthbert and Jay Harrington. They've actually gotten a lot of press with this particular grant. But you know, they came up with the idea. They really feel passionately about the main ecosystem and the problems that have been introduced by green crabs. And so they are trying to find ways to study these things, teach the students about them, and also maybe even eventually provide ideas for solutions for Yarmouth and for Maine.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I believe that Morgan Cuthbert was a teacher of the Year within the last couple of years.

Gabe Weiss:

That's right. I think he was a finalist this past year for teacher of the year. Yeah. Selected for Cumberland. That's right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have children in the school system?

Gabe Weiss:

I have two. I have two boys. One is in kindergarten and the other one is in third grade.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

At the same time you managed to graduate from Hamilton College and you have law degrees from Humane School of Law and the Pantheon Sorbonne University in Paris. And you've been in, you are an in house corporate attorney at wex. You've been living and working in Boston, London, Paris. So somehow you managed to come out of your educational background okay?

Gabe Weiss:

Yes, somehow I did. And I think that still mystifies some people. No, my parents were academics, both teachers at Colby College. So I was raised in an environment where I was expected to perform in school and to push myself and to do extra reading and work hard. That is not always the case. I had great friends, still do, in central Maine, you know, whose parents just didn't hold education in such high esteem. And so I guess I would say I'm one of the exceptions to the rule. Although I will say that the education I got at Meslonsky High School was excellent. They have a great arts department. Department. And I always felt very happy and supported there. I just think there is a much higher concentration of that kind of opportunity in places like Yarmouth.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I agree with you. As someone who's lived in Maine all of her life and worked with patients really all over the state, I think that there's an interesting combination of things that one needs in order to move forward educationally and it's not. And it is parents. And there is also the kind of cultural and educational milieu and it's. I think you can do well in lots of different settings, but it is a little easier in places like Yarmouth. One of the things that I think about a lot actually, is that we have an interesting. We have interesting pockets of really significant wealth in parts of the state and then other parts of the state, not so much. And having grown up in Yarmouth, I really value that we have this great education. But I know that we have a significant advantage because places like Yarmouth, Cape, Elizabeth Kennebunk, there's just more money to be put into this. So I don't know if that's a question so much as like a statement, you know, if you've got Mesalanski that maybe doesn't have the people the same type of demographic. It's kind of. It's an uphill road, I would guess.

Gabe Weiss:

Absolutely. And I've actually had the same thoughts. I mean, I think that as I said, I was very lucky in the particular nature of my parents profession and the opportunities that that allowed me. And as I said, that was kind of the exception to the rule up there. Whereas in a place like Yarmouth, you really do have many more highly educated and wealthy professionals who are able to bring their kids to Europe and expose them to that. So that maybe they do have an interest in getting a law degree in Paris eventually or something. If there were one thing that I would really like to see the Yarmouth Education foundation do, it would be to figure out a way to provide opportunities for students who are less advantaged. And you know, Yarmouth, as concentrated as it is with, you know, the families that I was just describing, it still is diverse. There still is an island community. And in fact there have been a lot more recent immigrants to the US moving up to Yarmouth. And so I think that there is a need, an increasing need. You know, the way we operate is we make grants based on applications that are made to us. So we don't just go out and decide where to deploy the funds that we raise. But what I would really love to see is for someone to come forward with grants, you know, maybe something to do with English as a second language or other opportunities that really are geared toward helping those less fortunate. We've had discussions at the board level about, you know, is there an opportunity for us to somehow use our funds to help other communities. Now that's obviously not part of our core mission, but if there were a way to just give back to Some other places in Maine that don't have these opportunities, that would be wonderful.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that you raise a really important point. And having lived in Yarmouth off and on for decades, I mean, you're right, it's not all doctors and lawyers and high income earning people. I mean, there's a broad range of people. And sometimes I believe that people who live in Yarmouth who don't have. They don't have parents who are making a lot of money, I think sometimes it can be really hard for them and they can feel really disadvantaged within that school system. So it sounds like that's a discussion that you've been having recently at the Education foundation level.

Gabe Weiss:

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is it about your background in law that makes you interested in this?

Gabe Weiss:

Well, I don't know if it's the background in law necessarily, although law is highly academic pursuit. So I've just done a lot of school. So in that sense I know about education systems. I've also spent part of my, my educational career, academic career in Europe, so I have that perspective as well. And again, you know, growing up the son of two professors, it's just a big part of me, I think that more what it is is that the legal profession in Maine, especially when I first moved back to Maine, I was working at one of the law firms in town. The law firms in Maine, I think do a wonderful job getting their associates involved in the community. Before I came back to Maine, I was working at large New York law firms where the expectation was just to sit at your desk and bill as many hours as possible. We were not made aware of opportunities in the community and we were not encouraged to go out and get involved. Whereas when I started at the law firm in Maine, it was made clear to me right away that I needed to go find organizations, boards to join. And that was really a part of my work. And so being given that encouragement and the opportunity to go out and find what in the community looked like a good community service endeavor for me was really just such a great opportunity. I was able to do a little looking into what was in Yarmouth and found the Education foundation. And it was just a good situation. I think

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

now, as the president of the Yarmouth Education foundation and previously working on the board, what have you been surprised by? What have you learned that you really didn't think that you would learn going into it?

Gabe Weiss:

Well, I've learned first that, you know, it's a very competitive world and school systems outside of Maine and outside of the US really are pushing the limits of education, and we can always be doing more. So when we get applications for grants in the STEM field, biology, those we feel are critical, and our mission is to fund things that are outside of the school curriculum. But you start to wonder, well, should this be outside of the school curriculum, or should this actually be something that every student is learning and why are they not? Why does it have to come through as a grant application? I mean, we're very fortunate in Yarmouth to have such great teachers who think of these things, who are out there listening to conferences about education and new things in education and bringing these forward. But I think that really, you know, the importance of giving the students these opportunities can't be ignored. The other thing I've learned is how somewhat political all of this can be. And so you have to be very diplomatic in how you interact with teachers and administrators and parents.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, explore that a little bit for me. Why such a need for diplomacy? What is it that so brings, I don't know, emotions to the surface or strong thoughts about or feelings about the subject?

Gabe Weiss:

Well, in Yarmouth, people pay a high rate of tax, property tax, and so they're going into it already saying, well, we've already given a lot so that our children can go to this wonderful school system. The Yarmouth Education foundation goes out and says, can you give a little more? So we're soliciting money in the community. Then we have to be really good stewards of this money and think very hard about how to give it back in the form of the grants that we make. And so you have teachers who come forward with applications. And I know you know from my experience that being a teacher is very time consuming. And it's hard to prepare a nice grant application when you're teaching and grading papers and doing all these other things, not to mention you have your own family. And so sometimes a grant proposal comes to us that doesn't really fit into our mission. And when I say that, I mean it maybe is something that the school budget should cover, or maybe just the application wasn't presented or written in such a way that it's convincing enough for our committee to want to fund it. And then the problem becomes, well, do you fund something that may or may not really fit into our mission because you've told parents whose money you've taken that this is what you're going to do with it. But you, on the other hand, don't want to fund something. You have trouble saying no to a teacher because you don't want to have a chilling effect on them wanting to make applications.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So how do you handle that as

Gabe Weiss:

diplomatically as you can? You have to. I find that just really being as transparent as possible is the only way that I can do it. So if something doesn't quite fit into our mission, I go right to the applicant and I say, you know, if we didn't, if the committee wasn't able to approve this for funding, I say exactly why. And I say, we will look forward to hearing from you again. And we also want to help you. So if there are ways that, you know, any of our board or committee members can assist you and kind of give you a little coaching in the grant writing piece, then we'd be happy to do that because it really is a relationship, you know, and we depend on the teachers for their ideas for these, these grant proposals. So we, we want them on our side.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you feel supported by the administration?

Gabe Weiss:

Absolutely, yeah. Andrew Dolof is our new superintendent and he has experience working with education foundations, I believe in Scarborough and Kennebunk, although don't quote me on that. And so he knows what our mission is, he knows how we operate and we work very closely with him and he's been wonderful to work with.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So for people who have wondered about what education foundations, what the main purpose is, it sounds like you've described a mission, a specific mission vision for your organization. Elaborate a little bit on that for me with regard to just education in general and Yarmouth specifically.

Gabe Weiss:

So our mission is to support educational opportunities that enrich students academic experience, but that fall outside of the school budget. That is our broad mission. We can do that in the form of supporting arts, languages, science, technology, math, biology. It can also be health. So for instance, one grant application that came through a few years ago was an extremely well researched and well presented application about the value of clean water and hydration. And the applicant had done quite a bit of research about how dehydrated students don't perform as well, don't think as well. And so we granted based on that, some new very modern water fountains that students can use to refill water bottles so that they're always hydrated and so that their learning experience is enhanced just generally. I forget what the question was though. I apologize.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, actually, I think you answered it. What is the mission and the vision of the education foundation?

Gabe Weiss:

Yeah, it's broad and I would say fluid. And it's always exciting when we have our grant cycles and we see these applications come in because there are usually one or two that we never thought of and they really are innovative and not what you're expecting, but are things that we really feel could make a difference. And so I would say that our mission is very similar to, I believe, most other education foundations in the state and out of the state in that sense.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things that interests me most about education foundations is that I believe that although we have great teachers here in the state of Maine, I would say broadly, I think it tends to be a very specific way that we educate children, older children, even really adults. And it tends to be kind of linear and visual, some auditory, there's not so much kinesthetic. I think it's complicated because people have different learning styles across the board. I'm guessing that someone like you succeeded very well within the educational system because your learning style, you know, fit very well as to how you were taught. So what I like about the education foundation is if you provide opportunities that are outside of what is normally done, then maybe you'll get a kid who say is more musically inclined. Maybe you'll get a kid who has a strong artistic sense and really resonates with the artist in residence. Maybe you'll get a kid who likes to stick his fingers in the mud and, you know, really learn more about the shellfish. So that, for me feels really exciting.

Gabe Weiss:

Yeah, I agree. And I think that hopefully, you know, we get more and more grants that do that. I think that by and large, we have gotten a lot that offer those kinds of opportunities. You know, even just we had a pilot program, I think last year of the stand up desks, you know, that are increasingly popular at the workplace. There was a lot of research done about how students can really benefit from those as well and just have a different. A lot of students have a different way of being in the classroom and might need to move around just like adults do. And so we piloted a program for some stand up desks and I think that they've actually been working really well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I also wonder if we start to think about education in a slightly different way, where it's not just that everybody has to go on to a university, everybody has to have an advanced degree, but as long as we get the type of educational background that we need to succeed in the world and feel happy, you know, maybe it's an expanded vocational experience or some other hands on experience. I wonder if this can be something for the education foundations in our state to be considering.

Gabe Weiss:

I think that's a really good point, actually, especially nowadays when more and more people are starting to sort of make a determination, a cost benefit analysis, before just immediately saying I need to go to college and saying, well, what else is there out there for me? And so maybe it is more important to see the education, you know, K through 12 as one thing that isn't necessarily leading to the next. That you know what that's going to be. I will say that I think that the Yarmouth community and the Yarmouth school system and the teachers do a wonderful job teaching students not just the importance of academics, but how you treat others and how you interact with the world around you and the importance of hard work and being a good citizen. I think that that that is really a part of what Yarmouth is and that's what I've seen with the teachers in the school system.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that is a very good point to end on and I completely agree with you. I absolutely have noticed that very same thing coming through with my brothers and sisters, my own children, myself. So yay, Good job Yarmouth teachers and main teachers. I actually think main teachers in general, as I've said, are very, very good. I've been speaking with Gabe Weiss who is the President of the Yarmouth Education Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to enriching the overall educational experience of students in the Yarmouth School Department. For more information on the Yarmouth Education foundation, visit our Show Notes page. Thanks for coming in today Gabe.

Gabe Weiss:

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine radio show number 272, Foundations of Education. Our guests guests have included Kate Snyder and Gabe Weiss. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Foundations of Education show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Because you've written and published yourself four books, you must have an interesting and unique, I guess, perspective on the creation of books and the marketing and selling of books.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, you get a real sense of you appreciate every author that comes in. All the work that went into the book, to me at least it's not just an object that has arrived on our shelves. I kind of understand the process behind it and the number of years that went into it and the number of people that had their hands in it. This is especially true of traditionally published books where you have the author, but also copy editors and developmental editors and publicists and cover designers and all of that that work together to create this final product. So it does make it harder to dismiss books when they come into the store or when we see them in a catalog. We kind of know what went into it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've read, I love to read. So I read books of all different stripes. And one of the things I've noticed about self published books is that that there is not the same level of editing. Which is interesting because I'm not sure that many of us think about the importance of an editorial staff. Not many of us think about the fact that it takes many hands to actually get a product from point A

[Unidentified voice]:

to point B. Yeah, it's something for me, a topic that often comes up when I talk with people that are considering how they're going to publish their book is they often bring up the fact that if they self publish, they get X percent, you know, 80% or something like that of the sale price of each book. Whereas just to be totally frank, for most of the books I've had, they were all traditionally published. And I get, you know, somewhere between 10 and 20% if that each book sold. And having gone through the process, it's easy to understand that all that other percentage, it's not going to some, you know, mustache twirling, cigar chomping editor that's just collecting money. It's going to all these different people that had a hand in the book and the book wouldn't that my books wouldn't have sold as they did. They wouldn't have looked as good as they did. They wouldn't have been the product, they were without all these hands in it. So I appreciate wanting, looking at a book as a singular thing and thinking, well, I wrote this so I should get, you know, almost all of the profit that comes from it. But it really does come from a community that created a book.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I have appreciated, I mean, I've read self published books that were very good and that seemed okay and fine without the levels of editing that usually one has. And then I've read other self published books that I've just been like, you know, there's so much of this that was good. And I think that if they had just had a good, even a good copy editor, you know, even someone who could find those apostrophes that were misplaced, or if they had some sort of content editor who could like just say, move those sentences around, the flow is going to improve if you do that. So I think it's an interesting, it's an interesting thing that, you know, artists, we like to believe that we're all spontaneously creative and amazing at every part of this, but it's not necessarily true.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah. And it's certainly not to sound dismissive because of course there are traditionally published books that could use those same improvements that somehow made it through without having them made. And there's self published books that are really excellent and there's all kinds of different levels of cooperative publishing and different levels of independent presses that are somewhere in between those two extremes that we've kind of created in this conversation here. But yeah, it's just all kinds of different ways that a book can come to market now. And I think generally speaking, that's really good for the book market. It's good for us because we have a greater number of books that we can pick from. And it does make our job harder because we have to be more selective in what we're bringing in. But at Sherman's and already at Print, some of our best selling books were locally published books or self published books. The mix was always, the list was always a nice mix of big presses, small presses, traditionally published, self published. Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you have a book, you have a book about skiing, you have the main outdoor adventure guide.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yep.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you also have one about the main beer trail.

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, I have the two books I wrote before those. One is a large book published by Cider Mill Press and Kennebunkport and distributed internationally about stouts and porters. So just specifically those two styles. And then my first book was called Maine Beer and it's a history of the brewing industry in Maine So history of brewing here in the state from the earliest European settlers up through prohibition and modern day brewing. And then a profile of every brewer in the state at that time in 2013, which was, I think, 42 breweries. And now we're up to 80, 89. So in the space of three years. So it's amazing how fast it's grown.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I was going to give you a ton of credit for being so prescient.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That you were out there writing about this stuff as it was happening and now it's like kind of like independent bookstores. Like now it's like the sweet spot.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah. It's a book that came out at the right time. I was lucky that it came out when it did because it was just kind of on the cusp of this big explosion of growth and brewing in Maine, because again, it's doubled in the space of three years from the number that had grown from when David Gehry opened his brewery in the mid-80s until 2013. I mean, the same number have opened in the last three years as it opened in those 25.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what is it that you think about yourself that has enabled you to tap into this greater something? The fact that, oh, I'm gonna write about beer. Oh, my gosh, beer is so, like now. It's so big. And I'm gonna have this independent bookstore and people are craving this. How are you? What's the gist of this here? What's the magic Josh thing going on?

[Unidentified voice]:

Oh, wow. I wish I knew. A lot of credit goes to my dad, who worked in industries again, doing the same kind of thing in his time. When he was my age, which would have been the, you know, the 60s and 70s, he was doing advertising and he owned Saddleback up in Rangeley, and he was the first person to partner with Hannaford Brothers to put coupons on the back of their receipts so that they could get a ski ticket, which now, you know, any supermarket you go to, you see coupons on the back of the receipts. It's just this idea of looking at a need that isn't being met or some cool creative idea that no one has had before. You know, it's hard to say what the nexus or where creativity comes from, but hopefully it was just being raised to question things and look at whether things are being done in the best way they could or see if this is something that I really think is cool and important and want to support probably more often than not. You gave two examples of things that I was right about. I'm probably wrong far more often than I'm right. But you get to get behind the things that you really like. And sometimes society follows you and sees the same thing.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's a really important point. And you are. You chose some things that you felt passionate about that you actually wanted to spend the time researching and writing about, learning about and writing about and getting behind to market. And I think that that's something that sometimes we're not sure that we want to take the chance to do.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, I mean, it does take. You have to kind of banish fear from your mind. If you're worried that it's something that isn't going to. To catch on, or if you're worried that you're wrong. It's very easy to convince yourself not to pursue something. I mean, people do that every day. They decide not to take the chance that they were going to take because it's safer to keep doing what they've been doing. So you just have to take the leap sometimes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, sometimes I think we don't know what we don't know. So you think. Well, nobody's ever put.