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Timothy Surrette is a professor of education at the University of Maine at Augusta and chair of the Bangor School Committee. This column reflects his views and expertise only, not those of the University of Maine System, Bangor School Department, or any organization of which he is a member.
There are many types of schools where educators can choose to pursue their careers. Private schools, religious/parochial schools, magnet schools, in-person and virtual charter schools, homeschool collectives, and the list goes on. With the 2026-2027 school year quickly approaching, I want to take this opportunity to thank those educators who chose and continue to choose to teach in public schools.
A little bit of history. The Boston Latin School, the first school in America, was established on April 23, 1635, and it still exists today. For much of its first 225 years, its students were white, male, protestant, and mostly from affluent families. Until the mid-1800s, these were the students who primarily had access to education in much of the United States.
Nationwide universal public K-12 education began in earnest in the mid-1800s under the leadership of Horace Mann, then secretary of education in Massachusetts. In 1838, he outlined six guiding principles for public schools, which include: 1) the public should no longer remain ignorant; 2) that such education should be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public; 3) that this education will be best provided in schools that embrace children from a variety of backgrounds; 4) that this education must be non-sectarian; 5) that this education must be taught using the tenets of a free society; and 6) that education should be provided by well-trained, professional teachers.
I’d like to focus on principle No. 3 (that this education will be best provided in schools that embrace children from a variety of backgrounds). I view this as the most compelling reason public education and public educators remain so important today.
Every day, educational technicians in public schools here in the Bangor area and throughout Maine rely on their professional expertise to provide supports and interventions to meet the needs of students with specific behavioral or learning disabilities. Every day, teachers in public schools welcome, care for, accommodate, and teach students who may have very few financial and social resources outside of school, who may have just moved to the school community from another country and don’t speak English as their first language.
Every day, school social workers and school counselors in public schools have conversations with, provide resources to, and show care and compassion to students who may be struggling with anxiety or depression; they may provide a student experiencing homelessness with access to clean clothes.
In many cases, the students I’ve described aren’t fully welcome or fully supported in nonpublic schools, and this is precisely why public education and public educators are vitally important and will endure.
Public educators, thank you for all that you do for all students and their families here in the Bangor area and throughout the state of Maine, and may you have a successful start to the upcoming school year.