PPS in the Press
Below is a sampling of media coverage highlighting the great students, staff, schools and programs of the Portland Public Schools:
In this April 23, 2025 Maine Morning Star story about lawmakers trying to ensure that the already required teachings of Wabanaki and African American studies are effectively and accurately included in Maine school curricula, a PPS administrator explains the importance of such curricula.
This April 16, 2025 Spectrum News article about the Board of Public Education's April 8 vote to add the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr as holidays to the official school calendar includes a reaction from a local rabbi who said she was “thrilled” to hear about the addition of the holidays.
This March 24, 2025, Portland Press Herald story features 1971 Portland High School graduate Sam Rosenthal, who has donated his collection of over 250 fossils – including teeth from a prehistoric shark and fossilized dinosaur bones like the horn of a triceratops – to the high school to create the new Rosenthal Museum of Natural History at the school.
On March 21, 2025, WMTW Channel 8 TV covered the Portland Public Schools’ 11th annual STEM Expo – a three-day event that PPS puts on each year in partnership with EnviroLogix. The reporter talked to students about the STEM Expo, which is an opportunity to showcase the STEM learning occurring in Portland Public Schools’ classrooms and expand students’ STEM knowledge.
In his March 18, 2025 column in The Forecaster, Superintendent Ryan Scallon concluded his series on the five priorities of the district's new Strategic Plan, writing about the "Systems" priority.
Portland High School grad Nathan Kapongo didn't know English or much about football when he started playing the game at PHS as a sophomore in 2016. Now the successful college athlete may be headed to the pros! This March 18, 2025 Portland Press Herald story features this amazing alum and his accomplishments.
Superintendent Ryan Scallon's February 19, 2025, column in The Forecaster is part of series he's writing about how priorities in the district's new Strategic Plan impact students in the classroom. This month's topic is the People priority in the plan.
This Feb 17, 2025, story in the Portland Press Herald recounts how the RamDogs Girls Swim Team used their team depth to claim the Class A title for the second year in a row!
A Deering High School senior is featured in this Feb. 13 Portland Press Herald story talking about her college goals. A bill recently introduced in the Maine Legislature would provide grants for students with autism and intellectual disabilities to go to college in Maine.
A story from WGME-TV, Channel 13 on Feb. 10, 2025 features Jessica Marino, a speech language pathologist at Presumpscot Elementary School, who loves her work supporting students' language development, speech fluency, and overall communication skills. "Communication is fundamental to really everything we do," Marino said. "Not just learning, our social interactions, our relationships, just the way we engage with the world. So, communication disorders can really impact that."