The Latest from Cobscook Institute from our Board Chair
Welcome to the latest edition of Cobscook Waves. I’ve been on the Cobscook Institute Board for two years, and lived down Crow Neck Road in Lubec for 20 years, but I’m new to being Chair of the Board. I invite you to read on to learn about our recent in-person and virtual programming, welcome a new teacher to Cobscook Experiential Programs, and learn of some recent structural changes at Cobscook Institute.
COVID-19 has required all of us to restructure our lives and work; Cobscook Institute has not been immune to these challenges. During the past year we hired a new Executive Director, Sebastian Teunissen. However, the many challenges of the past several months contributed to his resignation in July. We are now scaling back to reconsider our leadership needs while still delivering our important programming that meets the needs and interests of the community.
Despite these recent challenges, Cobscook Institute continues to embody continuity during times of COVID and big transitions. We continue to deliver responsive programming virtually and in-person, our campus is complete and ready for the high school program to begin in-person again this fall, and we have a committed board and staff engaged in the work of continuing to meet our mission at a newly refined scale.
Frank Trocco
Board Chair
Thanks, Michael!
We send our best wishes to Michael Giudilli as he transitions into a new life chapter blending education, wilderness, and medicine in Wisconsin! Michael taught in our Cobscook Experiential Programs from 2013 until this summer.
Kara McCrimmon, Director of Cobscook Experiential Programs, shared that “Michael consistently demonstrated an incredibly deep commitment to living out the relational approach, modeling what healthy relationships look like, and being available to students as a supportive, positive adult. He also showed what lifelong learning looks like. During his time as a teacher in the program, he earned his Maine Guide license and became an EMT, discovering a passion for wilderness medicine education.”
Michael reflected, “There's so much that I could say about my time at Cobscook Institute and how it has impacted me that it could fill a book. I am eternally grateful to the organization, and the individuals who make it the unique and powerful community that it is, for providing me with an environment to serve others and grow, both personally and professionally. I'm especially proud to have had the opportunity to work under and learn from a leader as visionary and compassionate as Alan; to work alongside a co-teacher as strong and supportive as Kara; and to have spent this chapter of my life building meaningful relationships with the creative and inspiring students of the Cobscook Experiential Program. Thank you for everything you've given me and please know that I carry each of you with me as I start this new adventure.”
Even though he’s far away now, the wonders of the virtual world will allow Michael to Zoom into the high school program this year to support with the electric guitar project, check in with his former students, and provide some health instruction.
Welcome, Damon!
With Michael’s departure comes Damon Weston’s arrival! We are thrilled to welcome Damon as our new Cobscook Experiential Programs High School Instructor. Damon grew up here in Trescott and attended local schools. After graduating from Oberlin College, he returned to Downeast Maine where he taught at Shead High School in Eastport for fifteen years, and most recently, middle school math at Rose M. Gaffney Elementary School in Machias. Damon has also been one of our board members for the past three years!
Damon has experience teaching sailing, mountain biking, and kayaking to local youth. “The satisfaction of sharing concrete and immediately applied skills is rewarding and illustrates the potential for student engagement when learning is experiential rather than simply conceptual,” he said. “I am very excited to work with the wonderful students and staff at Cobscook, an exceptionally innovative, collaborative, and engaged learning community. Cobscook’s commitment to creating interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students that are connected to real-life experiences aligns closely with my professional goals as an educator. This framework sets students up for a deeper understanding of themselves and the communities they live in.”
Welcome to the staff team, Damon!
Makers Series Recap
Thanks to the support of Healthy Acadia, we continued our virtual Makers Series launched last winter through June. Teens chose topics in graphic design, tie-dying, repairing clothes, and making their own camp stoves out of common household items. All offerings were well attended and we hope to relaunch workshops like those for teens and the broader community this fall. If anyone has ideas for workshops they want to see or offer, please be in touch.
Another Successful River Camp Experience
From July 24th to August 7th, we ran our annual River Camp program with our highest enrollment yet! With so many recent opportunities for youth having been postponed or cancelled, we were pleased to be able to offer some positive, in-person, teen-oriented programming this summer.
We followed the state Covid-19 guidelines for overnight camps throughout the program, which of course changed the feel of camp compared to previous years, but students still had fun and accomplished some impressive projects. They completed trail work at Downeast Salmon Federation’s Pleasant River Community Forest and moved clamshells into the headwaters of the East Machias River as part of a pH mitigation project to offset the effects of acid rain. They spent five nights on a wilderness canoe trip, enjoyed visits around the campfire, swam, and even tie-dyed.
"River Camp has produced for me both an amazing time and a tight friend group. It has also forced me to work through challenges and hardships and push through. This camp is not all fun and games. It is a wholesome learning experience that I will keep with me for the rest of my life."--Cadence, grade 11
High School Program to Start In-Person Classes on 9/8
As schools around the country grapple with reopening plans in the time of Covid, we have made the decision to follow the Maine Department of Education’s framework for in-person instruction 5 days a week. Our campus is well suited for outdoor learning and the ability to spread out indoors, but we will adapt if and as Covid-19 circumstances change.
We are due to have healthy enrollment numbers with new inquiries still rolling in and we will be accepting applications for new students until our first day of school on September 8th. For more information and to apply, contact Kara McCrimmon at (207) 733-2233 or kara@cobscookinstitute.org.
Your continued support is now more important than ever. Help keep these responsive educational programs alive well into the future.
For decades upon decades, schools in rural America have been grappling to find ways to improve educational outcomes and experiences for the children they serve. Cobscook Community Learning Center, now Cobscook Institute, was established in 1999 to help communities in easternmost Maine succeed in that endeavor. Our mission is to create responsive educational opportunities that strengthen personal, community, and global well-being. In 2013, guided by that enduring commitment and inspired by the pioneering successes being realized by the urban-based, trauma-informed, and whole child-focused Turnaround for Children, Cobscook Institute's Board committed to bringing TREE: Transforming Rural Experience in Education to life.
TREE was then designed and developed to serve rural schools and communities by Cobscook Institute board members, staff, and University of Maine and Colby researchers as a four-year school-based research project operating as a program division of Cobscook Institute and overseen by a Research-Practice Partnership Team (RPPT). As such, it has been governed by a tri-institutional partnership between Cobscook Institute, Colby College, and the University of Maine. Cobscook Institute's TREE staff, with the support of in-school mental health therapists, brought the TREE model to life in vibrant and impactful ways. After nearly three years of pilot implementation, the TREE RPPT has realized and documented remarkable improvements within its partner pilot schools and the communities they serve (see Impact Report here).
This past spring, in the midst of the regional, national, and global challenges of these times, coupled with the institutional transitions underway within Cobscook Institute, the Cobscook Institute Board and a collaborative research partnership between the University of Maine and Colby College, known as the Rural Vitality Lab (RVL), came together. The goal was to discern the best way for TREE to continue and complete its work. The need for trauma-informed teaching and learning could not be greater for the students, parents, teachers and administrators of Washington County, ME, where the program has been producing consistent positive outcomes.
Doing all we can to fulfill the promise of TREE is our common goal. We have determined that the best path forward is for Cobscook Institute to transfer TREE to the capable oversight of the Rural Vitality Lab. This transfer enables the RPPT to complete the pilot and pursue a long-term strategy for sustaining TREE. Formally, Colby College is assuming fiscal sponsorship for TREE, while the project will continue to be governed by the RPPT. The smooth transfer of administrative and fiscal responsibility for TREE is underway.
Through this creative response to the challenges of these times, the TREE RPPT is best positioned to continue data collection and analysis through June 2021. Members of the RPPT will continue to develop products, trainings, and further publications to ensure that TREE’s work has the widest and best benefit for rural communities in Maine and around the nation. Through this transfer, we give ourselves the best chance to conclude and build upon an evidence-based case for this rural-facing model of trauma-sensitive schooling.
Thanks to all of the partners and contributors who have helped bring TREE and its impacts to life – who have helped plant and nurture it within our rural educational landscape. This development honors all of those investments and contributions in ways that the Cobscook Institute and RVL teams will be forever grateful and which hold promise for helping our rural schools realize success in best serving and supporting the healthy development of all of our children.
To discuss this milestone development further please contact Alan Furth at alan@cobscookinstitute.org or call him at (207) 263-5174.
program to begin in-person again this fall, and we have a committed board and staff engaged in the work of continuing to meet our mission at a newly refined scale.
Michael reflected, “There's so much that I could say about my time at Cobscook Institute and how it has impacted me that it could fill a book. I am eternally grateful to the organization, and the individuals who make it the unique and powerful community that it is, for providing me with an environment to serve others and grow, both personally and professionally. I'm especially proud to have had the opportunity to work under and learn from a leader as visionary and compassionate as Alan; to work alongside a co-teacher as strong and supportive as Kara; and to have spent this chapter of my life building meaningful relationships with the creative and inspiring students of the Cobscook Experiential Program. Thank you for everything you've given me and please know that I carry each of you with me as I start this new adventure.”
which of course changed the feel of camp compared to previous years, but students still had fun and accomplished some impressive projects. They completed trail work at 
TREE was then designed and developed to serve rural schools and communities by Cobscook Institute board members, staff, and University of Maine and Colby researchers as a four-year school-based research project operating as a program division of Cobscook Institute and overseen by a Research-Practice Partnership Team (RPPT). As such, it has been governed by a tri-institutional partnership between Cobscook Institute, Colby College, and the University of Maine. Cobscook Institute's TREE staff, with the support of in-school mental health therapists, brought the TREE model to life in vibrant and impactful ways. After nearly three years of pilot implementation, the TREE RPPT has realized and documented remarkable improvements within its partner pilot schools and the communities they serve (
