POLAND — Mike Carter brought home one of seven-plus state awards in the past 12 years for Mechanic Falls-Minot-Poland schools.

In 2004, he was a finalist for the Maine Teacher of the Year. He was and is a social studies teacher at Poland Regional High School.

In 2005, Mary Martin, then principal of Elm Street School, won Maine’s Elementary Principal of the Year.

In 2011, Amy Hediger of Poland’s Whittier Middle School was the semi-finalist for Maine Teacher of the Year.

In 2014, Cari Medd, Poland Regional High School principal, was the Maine Principal of the Year. That same year, middle school special education teacher Shannon Shanning was named Maine Teacher of the Year.

In 2015, Skip Crosby was a Maine Teacher of the Year finalist and the 2015 Foreign Language Teacher of the Year.

Michael Hayashida, who teaches high school math, won the Androscoggin County Teacher of the Year for 2016.

That’s a sizable list for any district, not to mention one the size of Regional School Unit 16, which has 1,673 students and 156 teachers. 

The seven educators credit each other, those they work with and a team spirit in their district for receiving so much recognition.

“It’s because of the people around,” Martin said.

Martin retired as elementary principal in 2011 to care for her grandchildren. Today, she serves as chairwoman of the Regional School Unit 16 school board.

“If you talk to any of us, all would say it’s because of the support others have given us,” Martin said. “I know as Principal of the Year, you don’t do that all by yourself. It’s about having good people around.”

Things weren’t always so wonderful.

When Poland Regional High School opened in 1999, the three towns weren’t united.

“They were concerned for their own towns, their own kids,” said Medd, who was a high school teacher in 1999. 

The high school was opening with progressive grading and teaching ideas that made parents nervous. Public meetings were full of upset adults. There was mistrust, worry.

“It was a rocky start,” Medd said. “Parents were concerned about would the new high school do right by their kids.” And, she said, the town wasn’t used to having high school students around because they had been shipped out to high schools in other towns and cities.

Medd recalls getting phone calls about kids “walking down the middle of Route 26,” and being asked, “What’s going on?”

In 2009, the three towns voted to consolidate into one school district. For the first time, Minot and Mechanic Falls students went to Poland for middle school, a scary move for some parents.

The first school budget that year took four votes to pass, Medd said. With time, the three towns “have a general sense of ownership” of the middle and high schools, she said. Teachers feel that sense of trust.

And having students from all three towns attend the same middle school, which is in the same building as the high school, gave grades seven through 12 students an advantage.

The combined school allows teachers to more easily work together.

“We’re all on the same page,” Medd said.

The school’s four-year graduation rate has improved, from 80.6 percent in 2007 to 87.8 percent in 2015.

Hayashida credits the founding high school teachers for helping to build an atmosphere of success. Carter, Crosby and Medd are among those who taught at the school when it opened.

Going to work at a new school, trying new methods, excites smart, capable people to have a chance to do something on their own, Hayashida said.

“It’s not a surprise to me a lot have been recognized,” he said.

The administration backs efforts to build effective teachers, Crosby said.

“Every single development activity I’ve ever asked for has never been denied,” Crosby said. “I’m encouraged to get better and better.”

When he came to teach in Poland in 1999, Carter said, “everything was brand-new. We had to build the plane while flying it. The kids were coming. We didn’t have stuff ready.”

Faculty formed a bond, he said, and that camaraderie has continued. He added that teachers want to do better. “There’s a culture that has developed here of: ‘What kind of teacher do I want to be for these students?’”