If I had to guess, this is the data they used:

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/student-teacher-ratio-stats/maine

there are ways to save money but don't create a new problem be surgical.

It's not useful. It's intentionally misleading. Anyone using averages when sharing statistics is either inept or nefarious. Averages can be useful in specific cases but this isn't one of them.

Sorry you've apparently never taken a statistics class. The first thing they teach you is you can make the numbers say whatever you want them to say just by how the information is presented.

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Those rivalries run deep. Apparently there was talk a few years ago of Howland and Milo merging. Howland was not happy.

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My kids went to Lee. There is talk of consolidation. My son told me the other day that the foreign student program has just a handful of kids this year.

I mean the quality of the math education I received is directly related to the quality of my teacher. So theres that lol.

An average ratio of 1:11, using the same formula for comparison with all 50 states, is real and useful data. I’m sorry that it doesn’t fit with your world view.

Education is funded. Teachers buy extra stuff because they have the money available to them.

Biddo and saco definitely have less than 15 students.

Im a special Ed teacher too, but I usually have 10-15 students all with IEPs for ELA and math.

I work in a district where folks complain about having 15 students in a class for 4, 60 minute classes a day (five total with one prep). I came from a district near Albany, NY where we had 30+ students and not enough seats or books (5 classes, 40-45 min, with 2 preps). Many of the teachers I work with have never worked in another state, so they have nothing to compare their conditions to.

Loads of high school and middle school positions are open!

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i would imagine the wealthier districts are doing better in regard to this ratio than less affluent ones, but nothing radical/ground breaking about that statement, of course

>there’s a tax deduction that allows teachers to get extra money back for anything they put in Out of their own pockets beyond what the school has budgeted for

Your whole comment is trash but I had to highlight this part, it made me giggle. Deductions don't change your tax liability directly (that's credits), they change your taxable income. You need a big change to have any impact. The educator expense deduction tops out at $300, and unless a teacher has a bunch of other deductions, they're probably not itemizing anyway -- which makes this deduction 100% worthless for those educators.

The idea that a $300 deduction, which only exists because your fellow citizens refuse to fund education well enough that you don't have to spend your own money on supplies, is somehow this game-changing perk in favor of teachers is hilarious.

...But they aren't working in the field of education. That's the catch.

This is an uneducated post made by someone who probably whittles their time away working in retail or fast food and doesn't know a single lick about the education field.

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> Anytime it was below 0 degrees the heat pumps could not keep up, they’d work but if set at 68 the space would be 58 and they were working hard

This means whoever sized your system did it incorrectly - same thing would happen with wood, natural gas, or oil.

They become resistive electric heat around -5/-10.

They work just fine, but costs more. If you hire a joe blow to size and install, and they dont do a schedule J, they might undersize, leading to freeze.

If you've got a cheaper, non-variable $/BTU option, keep it for cold weather. We dont live in the UP tho, they're fine as your primary in maine.

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Windham typically has excellent teacher student ratios.