Keep Maine Beautiful

Schools

A year in your building.

Six stages, one assembly, and your teachers leading the way.

Katahdin, Millinocket · Photo by Judy Curry

The year, stage by stage

A school year runs in a fixed order, and so does this program. Nothing here is a curriculum. The classroom material is a starting set that teachers are meant to change.

One word first. The Community Crew is everyone who does this work with us, from a neighbor who walks a road with a bag to a teacher who runs the program in their building. A School Crew Lead is that person for one school.

  1. ReadyYour school returns the signed enrollment agreement with its enrollment number and names one School Crew Lead, the one contact for the year. That number sets how many stickers ship.Read first: Ready, Set, Go card, the whole year on one page.
    Your school
  2. SetA box arrives with the welcome letter, the cards, the activity menu, one acorn sticker for every student in the building, stamped with the year, and an Acorn Book for each student new to the program. Open the letter first. It explains what the acorn means. A reply confirming receipt is enough.In the box: Welcome Letter · Classroom Activity Menu
    Your school
  3. GoOne launch assembly for every student. Two sittings or grade-level groups are fine. Students share what keeping Maine beautiful means to them and their favorite place in Maine, and those answers feed the classroom work. Slides come in three sets: kindergarten to grade 2, grades 3 to 5, and grades 6 to 12. Stickers stay in the box.For whoever runs it: Assembly Facilitator Script
    Together
  4. Through the yearClassroom work in any subject: art, writing, math, science, social studies, outdoors, or a project the class designs itself. A student earns an acorn when they finish something they set out to do. Finished work can go to the Classroom Gallery, credited to the class or the school, never to a named child.
    Your teachers
  5. Year endThree numbers: students in the building, students who did classroom work, and pieces sent to the Gallery. That is the whole ask.
    Your School Crew Lead
  6. Next yearHold another assembly and the school is current. New year, new sticker, new stamp. Returning students add it to the Acorn Book they already have.
    Together

Who does what

Your school

Names one School Crew Lead, hosts one assembly a year, decides which classroom work happens and when, keeps the stickers somewhere secure until they are earned, and reports three numbers at year end.

Keep Maine Beautiful

Ships the box, writes and rewrites the materials, holds the counting rules, publishes school-level numbers, and hosts the Classroom Gallery. We hold no student names, ages, or writing. Classroom answers stay in the classroom.

Rules we hold, every time

  • No child is published by name. Gallery work is credited to the class or the school. A first name plus a grade plus a named school identifies a child in a small Maine town.
  • One sticker for every student in the building. Nobody competes for one, and a student who declines still belongs.
  • The acorn marks completion, not quality and not attendance. A struggling student who finishes earns one. A strong student who abandons the work does not.
  • Counting happens at the school level and is reported once. Six teachers reporting on the same hundred students produces an impossible number.

For parents

This program is about something you already teach at home: we take care of what we love. Our towns, our roads, our shared places. Your child hears it at school, from adults they trust, at a level that fits their age. You are the one who makes it last.

What your child does

Your child joins one assembly and talks about what keeping Maine beautiful means and their favorite place in Maine. Then the class does work in a subject they already have, like art, writing, or science. When your child finishes what they set out to do, they earn an acorn for their Acorn Book.

What your child does not do

Nobody sends your child out to pick up trash. Your child’s name, photo, and schoolwork never come to us.

When the acorn comes home

  • Ask what they made and why.
  • Ask about their favorite place in Maine, then go there together.
  • Let them see you do it: pick up the wrapper by your door, return the cans, thank the person who keeps a place nice.
A civic record that is theirs Every acorn is stamped with the school year, and each one goes in your child’s Acorn Book. Year after year, the book fills up, a record of what they finished and gave back. It belongs to your family, to share on a college or job application when the time comes.

The acorn is planted at school. You water it. Values that start this way show up every day, and someday your child will pass them on.

Where the program is today

The program is in development, with a few more steps to take before schools can enroll.

  • Enrollment opens once the School Enrollment Agreement is final.
  • We are looking for a Schools Lead, and for teachers to join the committee that shapes the classroom material. If either interests you, tell us in the form below.
  • Pre-kindergarten is absent. It needs its own approach.

The invitation

The program is early, and that is the opportunity. The Classroom Activity Menu you would receive this year is a starting set. It transfers to a committee of School Crew Leads once enough of them are seated, and they rewrite it from what actually happened in their rooms.

So the teachers who come in first do not inherit this program. They shape it. If that sounds like your kind of work, say so, and we will talk about what a founding year in your building could look like.

Karen O. Andrei signature
Karen O. Andrei · Founder and Executive Director

Sign your school up

Enrollment opens once the agreement is final. Tell us a little about your school now, and we will be in touch as soon as it is. Founding teachers shape this program, so tell us what you would want from it too.

What are you asking about?

We use this only to follow up about the schools program. We never share it. Student names never come to us.

Joining the Community Crew is separate and personal, and plenty of teachers do both.

Prefer email? Write to karen@keepmainebeautiful.org.