TREE has continued to provide community support through the pandemic, including through this fun sidewalk chalk art competition.
In our August 2020 edition of Cobscook Waves, we announced the exciting development of transferring TREE to the capable oversight of a collaborative research partnership between the University of Maine and Colby College, known as the Rural Vitality Lab. TREE’s branches are now able to reach even farther under the continued leadership and teamwork of Director Brittany Ray and Trauma Responsive Educational Specialists Laura Thomas and Ashley Cirone.
This transition comes at a time when TREE is in the final year of its pilot phase, compiling the many positive outcomes of the pilot and preparing for application of the TREE process more broadly. “Having the ability to have such a stable incubation through Cobscook Institute over the past several years has given us the freedom to pursue what we have felt all along is most important: that Transforming Rural Experience in Education is a process, not a model,” said Lyn Mikel Brown, Colby College Professor of Education and member of TREE’s Research Practice Partnership Team. “You need people to have faith in that along the way for it to bear fruit over time. We have come to develop an even deeper respect for place-based work, the power of community, and of community-school relationships. It is so important that we all see this as a system-change approach, not a piecemeal thing. This next year, we’ll be working on moving the work forward in that way.”
Cat Biddle, Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Maine, holds a broad perspective of Maine schools and their relationships with their communities: “The kind of relationship that TREE has with schools is unusual. When COVID-19 hit and schools closed, most community organizations were shut out. But TREE wasn’t, which speaks to the strength of the relationships that TREE has. Because of those deep relationships, TREE staff were able to be nimble and shift to make sure they were helping to address basic needs. Families knew who to ask for what they needed, and TREE was able to support them. It felt so powerful and unique.” Cat added, “Cobscook Institute has been the place that allowed TREE to grow through the nascent stages, to build community relationships and partnerships across the country.”
Alan Furth, Cobscook Institute Co-Founder and Founding Director applauds this development, “This transfer of TREE is a development that honors all that has gone into bringing TREE to life and holds promise for an enduring future of continuing to contribute to improvements in rural teaching and learning. The transfer makes both Cobscook Institute and TREE leaner, more nimble, and sustainable through these challenging times.”
Mark Tappan, Professor and Chair of Colby’s Education Program, agreed. “TREE would not be here without that nurturing incubation. But just as kids eventually leave home and take on more autonomy and freedom, so too do exciting initiatives like TREE.”