Wreath-making class raising money for RSU 14 Travel Club educational trip to Spain

By Masha Yurkevich

Looking for an activity to put you into the holiday spirit, while also supporting a good cause? There’s one coming up this weekend in Windham.

Petals Farm and Garden Design, 11 Brick Hill Road
in Windham, is hosting a wreath-making class at
11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 15 to help the RSU 14
Travel Club raise money for an educational
trip to Spain for students at Jordan-Small
Middle School and Windham Middle School
next spring. SUBMITTED PHOTO

Participants will be able to create a customized and personalized Christmas wreath at 11 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 15 at Petals Farm and Garden Design, 11 Brick Hill Road in Windham. The fundraiser is the idea of Alissa Messer, a parent whose daughter is a student at Jordan-Small Middle School in Raymond and part of the Travel Club, which is raising money to travel to Spain. Messer will be chaperoning the Spain trip and said she had the idea to do a wreath-making class as a fundraiser for the Spain trip.

“I think it is very important that when we do community events that we support one another,” Messer said. “This wreath-making class is a great way to celebrate the season, spend family time together, and support a local business at the same time; it’s a win, win, win. Lyndsay Stretch was super gracious to quickly say ‘yes’ and supportive for this event.”

The wreath-making class will be led by Lyndsay Stretch, owner and operator of Petals Farm and Garden Design, whose child also attends RSU 14. Stretch is an expert in everything floral and is also a designer for landscaping. She is very involved with RSU 14 and field hockey.

The wreath-making class will be held inside of a greenhouse where Stretch will walk participants through how to make their own wreaths and show them how different supplements can be added to the wreath. Stretch is very artsy and creative and says participants will not leave this class with a generic, box-stamped wreath, but with something that is unique, different, and special, along with the memories of making it.

She said that the wreaths can then be used to hang on the door, entryway, or give as a beautiful gift.

This planned trip to Spain will be a first for students attending Windham Middle School and Jordan-Small Middle School.

“Last spring, I partnered with EF Tours to be able to offer tours for middle schoolers,” says Mandy Lavallee, a Windham Middle School eighth-grade Language Arts teacher and EF Tours group leader. “We chose Spain because it was specifically designed for middle schoolers, and we also wanted to make sure that it was equitable not just for students who were studying Spanish. We are taking seventh and eighth graders from both Jordan-Small Middle School and also Windham Middle School. We wanted the kids to be able to experience something different.”

Even though each student has their own fundraising page with a specific link, they have been working on other ways to raise funds. Students have gone to local businesses looking for donations and most recently the group participated in the district’s Athletic Booster's craft fair.

Still, teachers and parents sought a way to help alleviate costs. They did not just want the students to have the trip paid for them, but for the kids to also get involved and see the process. They just finished up in November with the craft fair where many talented and artistic students made things such as cards, woodworking projects, and other works of art and they were able to raise more than $700 for the trip through the craft fair.

“We also have a Clynk account and will be having a car wash in April along with some other fundraisers,” says Lavallee.

The Spain trip is scheduled to take place during April vacation for students.

“The eight days include airfare, a 24/7 tour guide, breakfast, lunch and all excursions,” says Lavallee. “Traveling to Spain is a great opportunity for our students to experience other cultures and ways of life. They will learn new skills such as tile making, olive oil farming and Flamenco dancing in Seville. Zip lining in Toledo is just the icing on the cake.”

If anyone would like to donate to the group, they may do so by writing a check out to EF Educational Tours. Please send to Windham Middle School, Attention Mandy Lavallee, 408 Gray Road, Windham, Maine 04062.

The wreath-making class costs $60 to participate and while the event will be held inside a greenhouse, organizers advise participants to dress seasonally. <

Maine Audubon’s 41st Annual Loon Count results show healthy loon population

It was a very good year – for Maine loons. When every single number associated with the Annual Loon Count goes up, scientists at Maine Audubon say it’s a great indication that the Common Loon population is healthy. All the numbers of adult loons, loon chicks, lakes counted, and volunteers were higher in 2024 than they were in 2023.

Estimated results of the 2024 Maine Audubon Annual Loon
Count reveal that the adult loon and chick population in
the southern half of Maine, including those in Sebago Lake,
has more than doubled in the past 40 years. 
COURTESY PHOTO 

Every year on the third Saturday in July, people get up early and head out onto lakes and ponds across the state to look and listen for loons. On July 20, 1,624 volunteers (up from 1,503 last year) headed out to 407 lakes across the state (up from 374 last year) to gather data that allows Maine Audubon to calculate a population estimate for southern Maine and keep an eye on trends over time. Sebago Lake is a prime location for Maine Audubon loon counters each year.

The Maine Audubon Annual Loon Count may only last half an hour, from 7 to 7:30 a.m., but the regional coordinators spend many hours assigning people to lakes, conducting outreach, compiling and checking data, and tallying numbers, from Aroostook to York. Volunteers look for loons in every one of Maine’s 16 counties.

To determine an estimate for adult and chick population in the southern half of Maine (south of the 45th parallel, where enough lakes are covered by counters to produce a reliable estimate) Maine Audubon uses a stratified random sampling method, which has been used since 1983.

Based on those calculations, Maine Audubon estimates a population of 3,146 adults and 420 chicks for the southern half of Maine. In comparison, in 1983, it estimated a population of 1,417 adult loons and 176 loon chicks in the southern half of Maine, suggesting a doubling since the initial year of the loon count.

Audubon officials say that there is not enough coverage in the northern portion of Maine (north of the 45th parallel) to confidently provide an estimate of the loon population for that part of the state. But the number of lakes and volunteer counters is also trending up there.

Last year, Maine Audubon had 69 northern lakes counted; this year, and 353 counters gathered data for 96 northern lakes. On those lakes, volunteers tallied 509 adults and 50 chicks. This number cannot be used as a straight comparison to the south, but it can serve as a reference for changes in loon numbers on individual lakes and for northern coverage.

Maine Audubon wishes to thank the volunteers who turned out to count northern lakes and hope to see more coverage in future years.

“The data volunteers collect is used to track population trends over time,” says Maine Audubon Director of Conservation Sally Stockwell. “We expect some fluctuations year to year, but the numbers indicate a healthy loon population, with a slowly increasing adult population and relatively stable chick numbers.” Maine has the largest population of loons in the eastern United States, which makes the breeding success of loons here critical to the regional population at large.

The Common Loon faces all kinds of threats—boat strikes, nest flooding, lead tackle, eagle predation—and yet, with the help of an ever-growing volunteer base, the population remains robust.

“There are so many people looking out for loons,” says Loon Count Data Coordinator Ethan Daly. “Loons are something Mainers can appreciate and unite behind. More people are educating their neighbors, more people are involved in our loon restoration program, more people are getting rid of lead tackle, and more people are considering how shoreline management can impact freshwater ecosystems.”

All these steps can help ensure our lakes are clean and clear, which loons depend on to find and catch their prey. These efforts also help increase loon nesting success and survival. Maine’s loons are lucky to have so many incredible volunteers watching out for them.

This fall, a new law which prohibits the sale of painted lead jigs went into effect, closing a dangerous loophole. Lead poisoning has long been one of the leading causes of death for adult loons in Maine. Common Loons can ingest lost or discarded lead fishing tackle when it sinks to the bottom of a lake or pond, causing illness and death. It has been illegal to sell and/or use lead sinkers and bare “unpainted” jigs (weighing less than an ounce in weight or measuring less than 2.5 inches in length) in Maine since 2017.

Now the sale of painted lead jigs within these size and weight limitations is prohibited and the use of them will be illegal in 2026, bringing Maine’s waterways one step closer to being safer for loons. Maine Audubon is helping remove this dangerous lead tackle from circulation by buying and recycling newly illegal lead tackle directly from retailers, and by collecting old lead tackle items from anglers who want to get rid of it from their tackle boxes.

For specific information about the annual count, the Fish Lead Free program, or the Maine Loon Project, or to volunteer for projects and activities, contact conserve@maineaudubon.org or visit maineaudubon.org/loons. <

WHS varsity football athletes serve as mentors for third-grade players

By Jolene Bailey

Within the Windham school community, students are offered opportunities to interact with not only their classmates in the grade they attend, but with every grade.

Members of Windham High School's Varsity Football Team
served as mentors for students in the Windham Primary 
School's third grade class of Savannah Lemieux this
fall. The football players stressed the importance of
academics for student-athletes.
PHOTO BY JOLENE BAILEY

“I had an idea early in the school year to connect the high school football players with my third-grade football players. I had been asking around about the best way to do this” said Savannah Lemieux, a Windham Primary School teacher.

Lorraine Glowczack’s name was shared with Lemieux a few weeks later. Glowczak is the Director of Community Connections for Windham schools. She is also the coordinator for the WHS capstone project and extended learning opportunities available to high schoolers. She then connected a handful of high school football players who were interested in helping Lemieux.

The mentorship of varsity athletes with Windham Primary School students reinforced the lesson that being a student takes priority before athletics.

“This mentorship connects to the habits of work rubric. Prior to meeting the high schoolers, my students came up with questions for them,” Lemieux said. “My students wanted to learn about how important it was to keep good grades, take school seriously, and finish their work. The high schoolers stressed the importance of being a student before an athlete and discussed what it meant to be a student athlete.”

High school athletes practice the importance of time and stress management balancing out school life, athletic life, and their own personal life. Those are all critical and crucial skills important for growing minds to learn.

“I think for both the older and younger students they both walked away feeling like it was a great experience,” Lemieux said. “There was lots of laughter and connections made because of their shared interest in football.”

The high school students said that people look to them to be role models on and off the field. They said setting an example for your peers and touching upon picking each other up and supporting others when you fall down are crucial for young kids to learn.

“I have used this experience as a reminder when they don’t want to do work in class, and it has been a great motivator for them. I hope they were able to take away the feeling of pride in how hard they have worked to be where they are today,” said Lemieux.

The older students took the time to explain the importance of school in a student perspective rather than a teacher’s way that had come across more effectively to some students at a level that they understood.

“My students haven’t stopped talking about how fun it was and how cool they thought the older students were,” Lemieux said. “After seeing how successful it was this time, I will be looking to find other ways to make these connections.”

She said that connections throughout the community can go a long way in one’s individual life and having positive role models builds personal growth. <

In the public eye: WMS Science and Math teacher positively impacts lives of her students

Editor’s Note: This is another in an ongoing series of Windham and Raymond town employee profiles.

By Ed Pierce

Every student deserves a champion, a teacher who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. For many Windham Middle School students, Katie Franzoni is that teacher.

Katie Franzoni has  taught
math and science at
Windham Middle School for
the past 17 years and she
also serves as coach for the
WMS seventh-grade girls'
basketball team.
SUBMITTED PHOTO 

Franzoni is a Sixth-Grade math and science teacher for the Maui Team at WMS, and she also serves as coach for the school’s seventh-grade girls’ basketball team. She takes her work seriously and believes she’s positively impacting the community by teaching her students valuable life skills and contributing to their character development.

“I love building relationships with my students and seeing them grow and develop new skills,” Franzoni said. “I also love that every day is different. Middle schoolers are unique and interesting too. They keep me on my toes and say and do the funniest things. Our motto is you can't make this stuff up."

She’s taught at Windham Middle School for the past 17 years and currently teaches three science blocks, one math block, an “ignite block” which is time for students to read, work on iReady math lessons, or other work that they need to, and an advisory block, a time to connect with a small group of students to build a small community within the bigger school community, and build peer-to-peer relationships. Franzoni also serves on the WMS leadership team that meets twice a month with school administrators to discuss school-related issues, plan upcoming professional development for the staff, and other topics.

“The most challenging aspect of what I do is meeting the diverse needs of all the learners in the classroom,” she said. “They come in with a range of abilities, prior knowledge, and home lives. My job is to make them feel safe and welcome so that they are ready and able to learn.”

Originally from Calais, Maine, Franzoni attended the University of Southern Maine and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology with a minor in math before obtaining a master's degree in Elementary Education. While at USM she was a standout on the women's basketball team, serving as team captain and was a starter for the team that went to two Final Fours and was the national runner-up in 2006. She was proud to be inducted into the USM Hall of Fame in 2019.

Her student teaching in college was at Windham Primary School and Franzoni says through that experience, she fell in love with the school district here.

“The teaching program at USM has a strong, mutually beneficial relationship with RSU 14,” she said. “My family likes living in the same community where I teach. Windham is an amazing community who supports and encourages one another.”

According to Franzoni, her most memorable moments while working for Windham Middle School take place every spring.

“It's not one moment as it happens every year, but I love raising brook trout with my students,” she said. “We have 300 brook trout eggs delivered to our classroom at the end of January. We learn about their life cycle and the water quality that they need to survive. We release them into the Pleasant River at the end of May. My students love learning about trout. They check on them daily and are excited to watch them grow and develop and eventually release them into the river.”

The greatest misconception people may have about her work is that it is just a 7 to 2 job,” Franzoni said.

“Teaching is more than a bell-to-bell job. We often stay late or bring work home,” she said. “We care about our students beyond what they are being asked to learn. We often carry the worries, struggles, and hardships of our students.”

The most important thing that she says she’s learned while working at WMS is rather simple.

“Although we have to put up with a lot of demands, whether it be from administrators, students, parents, or anyone else who has an opinion about teachers and teaching, we need to put those interests aside and focus on doing a good job for our students,” Franzoni said. <

Windham extends property tax assistance program deadline

By Ed Pierce

The window for eligible seniors in Windham to receive help with property tax assistance will close on Dec. 27 and amended provisions for the program allow more elderly residents than in previous years to apply.

To encourage more participation, Windham
Town Councilors have extended the deadline 
for filing applications for the Senior Property
Tax Assistance program to Dec. 27 and 
dropped eligibility residency requirements
from 10 years to five years. FILE PHOTO  

During the Windham Town Council meeting on Nov. 26, councilors voted unanimously to authorize Windham Town Manager Barry Tibbetts to approve qualifying applications for senior property tax assistance for an additional extension of 45-days ending Dec. 27. Earlier in November, the council approved reducing the amount of eligibility time for senior residents having lived in Windham from 10 years to five years to encourage more seniors to apply for the program.

Councilors say extending the deadline for applications to Dec. 27 potentially ensures that more seniors benefit from the program, particularly those who previously didn’t apply due to the stricter residency timeline.

Windham’s Senior Property Tax Assistance Program awards a maximum property tax refund of up to $700 depending upon your property tax bill and your overall annual household income.

Eligible participants must file an application and meet other requirements including that they be at least age 65 when applying; have owned or rented a home in Windham that they have lived in for an entire year prior to the time of application; lived in Windham for at least five years; paid property taxes in Windham in 2023 and 2024 or rented in Windham for at least a year; have an annual household income less than $63,750; or are 100 percent disabled with Social Security Administration document verification.

At the Nov. 26 meeting, Tibbetts told the council that last year, the town approved a total of 276 households for the Senior Property Tax Assistance Program and reducing the residency time is expected to add at least 25 more applicants.

“This is trying to be fair to give them the opportunity to apply,” Tibbetts said.

Previous applications filed earlier this year that did not qualify because the senior applicants did not meet the 10-year residency requirement have been retained and will now be reconsidered under the amended 5-year residency reduction.

Tibbetts said a total of four senior applicants will be reconsidered who have lived in town for at least five years but did not meet the previous 10-year residency requirement.

According to Tibbetts, Windham Town Councilors Bill Reiner and Nick Kalogerakis advocated for the council to slash the residency requirement to five years to help senior town residents struggling to pay property taxes on fixed incomes.

“It makes a lot of sense to do that,” Tibbetts said.

Reiner said moving forward he would like to see the residency requirement for the program further dropped to one year.

“I think the residency requirement to file a Homestead Exemption is one year,” Kalogerakis said. “For the Senior Tax Assistance Program, I’ll take the lowest residency we can get, but I’d like to see it set at one year.”

Under the rules for filing for a Homestead Tax Exemption in Windham, the existing residency requirement in Windham is one year. This allows homeowners whose principal residence is in Maine a reduction in valuation, adjusted by the town's certified assessment ratio.

The maximum reduction in Windham for 2024 under the Homestead Tax Exemption is $25,000 off the assessed valuation of your property.

Property tax bills in Windham are collected twice a year with the first installment due on the first business day in October and the second installment due on the first business day in April.

To file an application for a property tax reduction under Windham’s Senior Property Tax Assistance Program, call Tammy Hodgman at 207-892-1907 or send an email to thodgman@windhammaine.us

More details about the program are available at https://www.windhammaine.us/616/Senior-Property-Tax-Assistance <

WMS Altitude students reflect on book drive to assist Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital

By Masha Yurkevich

On Nov. 26, eighth grade students from Windham Middle School’s Altitude Pathway visited the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital to donate books that they had been collecting throughout the month of November. This is the third year that Altitude has collected books for the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, and during a trip to the hospital, the students donated 90 books to be used by patients there.

Altitude students from Windham Middle School show a few
of the books they collected while visiting Barbara Bush
Children's Hospitalin Portland last month. Front, from left,
are Karina Fulkerson, Caitlyn McKeeman, Alli Muir,
Autumn Carlsen-Cook, and hospital employee Sharon
Granville. Back, from left, are Lisa Anderson, Carter
Coffin, Isaiah Duford, Saige Lombardo, Cooper 
Fournelle, Ryder Matheson, Katherine Jones, and
Kayjah Veilleux. PHOTO BY MASHA YURKEVICH
 

Sharon Granville, a Child Life Specialist at the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, says that with such a saturation of technology over the past few years for children, they are thankfully seeing a re-engagement with books and reading, and often have families requesting books from them.

“Due to our policies here at the hospital, we have to have what we call a ‘giving library,’ where we offer children the opportunity to pick a book, and they get a chance to take it home. We partner with community friends to help us replenish and refresh our library,” Granville said.

Altitude students agree with the saying that it is better to give than to receive.

“My main takeaway from this trip was to be grateful for what you have,” says Kayjah Veilleux, an Altitude student. “I think the children and also their parents are very grateful for what we do, and it feels good to make a difference.”

Student Katherine Jones said that with everything that the children and their families have to go through, donating books is the least they can do to help out.

“Our whole purpose was to gather books to donate to kids who are going through a tough time and to inspire the rest of the community to start thinking in a giving spirit,” said Alli Muir, an Altitude Pathway teacher. “It has been cool to see that the eighth-grade Children’s Hospital Book Drive has inspired younger students in the school to start talking about wanting to make and donate things as well.”

Altitude teacher Autumn Carlsen-Cook said that this is a great way to practice compassion and empathy with our community with the idea that kids put themselves in the position of another kid who might be going through a hard time.

“We want to celebrate community and giving back to others,” says Lisa Anderson, an Altitude Pathway teacher.

The donated books are not just for distraction or enjoyment, but are sometimes used for educational purposes, as there is an on-site teacher. The hospital has children from infants to older adolescents, with 30 pediatric beds that care for pediatric patients with all different reasons for being at the hospital, eight beds in the intensive care unit, and fifty beds for a separate unit that care for their smallest patients.

The children at the hospital are grateful for the books that are donated.

“One of the first things that comes to mind for me is the fun connection for a child to see the title of the book that they got; for a child to see a favorite or to see a book that they were looking forward to,” says Granville. “I greatly appreciate the input from our teacher to know what are those popular that kids are reading now, and those are the books that we sometimes connect with community friends to donate to us. For a child to find that book that they have been wanting is such a nice thing to be able to offer to our patients. It is a wonderful way to support both developmental needs as well as emotional wellbeing while these children are in the hospital.”

She said that the Hospital also has opportunities for adults to volunteer for the children.

“We ask for a weekly commitment for a minimum of six months just because of the unique setting that we are,” says Granville.

A volunteer is someone who brings developmental play and gets to know the kids for who they are, not the reason that they are in the hospital. For the staff, their main focus for the children is why are you here and what is different about your body at this time, where volunteers have a primary focus of getting to know the patient better as a person and what do they like to do, based on age, interest, and activities.

“We love partnering with our community friends. I think it is a great project for school students to be able to know that they are making a difference to others who are experiencing a tough time,” says Granville. “No one knows or anticipates when they are going to need to come to the hospital, and it is nice to know that you had a chance to give back and that you are making a difference in the day of someone who may not be feeling well.”

The Altitude program at WMS is an alternative hands-on learning opportunity which focuses on service. It helps connect academically and aims to help students forge strong supportive relationships to foster confidence and trust while developing social skills and improved communication. <

With federal overtime rules blocked, Maine’s Minimum Salary Threshold set for 2025

AUGUSTA – This fall, the Maine Department of Labor shared the news that under a new U.S. Department of Labor rule, the minimum salary threshold for exempting a worker from overtime pay would be $58,656 in 2025.

The Maine minimum salary threshold for exempting a worker from overtime pay must exceed 3,000 times the state's minimum wage or the annualized rate established by the US Department of Labor, whichever is higher.

The new federal rule that would have increased the salary threshold was recently blocked by court action. Therefore, starting Jan. 1, 2025, the new minimum salary threshold in Maine will be $845.21 per week, or $43,951 per year.

This is only one of the factors used in determining whether a worker is exempt from overtime pay under federal or state law. An individual can earn more than the minimum salary threshold and still be eligible for overtime. The duties of each worker must be considered as part of this analysis.

The minimum wage and overtime law can be found here: http://legislature.maine.gov/legis/statutes/26/title26sec664.html. The Maine Labor Department also has more information available on its website at https://www.maine.gov/labor/labor_laws/wagehour.shtml .

In other labor law reminders for January:

Paid Family and Medical Leave Registration & Contributions

Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, employers with employees in Maine will be required to register on the new Paid Family and Medical Leave Portal and begin payroll contributions.

The Maine Department of Labor is inviting employers and third-party administrators to December webinars at https://www.maine.gov/labor/news_events/article.shtml?id=13128223 that will focus on what they need to know about the new Paid Family and Medical Leave online contributions portal before they need to register in January.

Benefits are scheduled to begin May 1, 2026.

To keep up to date on Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave, register for webinars, and see the answers to frequently asked questions, visit https://www.maine.gov/paidleave/

Minimum Wage to Increase

Pursuant to Maine law (Maine statute Title 26, chapter 7, section 664), effective Jan. 1, 2025, the state minimum wage will increase from $14.15 to $14.65 per hour, based on data by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. Maine law, amended by citizens referendum in 2016, requires annual adjustments to the minimum wage based on the cost-of-living index (CPI-W) for the Northeast Region. Between August 2023 and August 2024, there was a 3.6 percent increase in the CPI-W.

In addition to the minimum wage, the new "tip wage," or service employee minimum wage, in 2025 will be $7.33 per hour. This means that service employees must receive at least a direct cash wage of $7.33 per hour from the employer. The employer must be able to show that the employee receives at least the minimum wage of $14.65 per hour when the direct wage and tips are combined at the end of the week. The amount of tips needed to qualify as a service employee will increase from $179 per month to $185 per month.

Employers can download the required minimum wage poster at no cost on the Department's website: https://www.maine.gov/labor/posters/index.shtml <