Agricultural Education in Maine
According to the 2023-24 National FFA Manual, Maine has 14 FFA Chapters with 328 members. Maine affiliated with the National FFA in 1930 and received Charter 41. The National FFA has a website with the original charter application from states but the Maine charter is missing. The Maine FFA website is https://www.maine.gov/doe/learning/ffa.
Of the 14 FFA chapters in Maine, five are in high schools, three are in middle schools, three are in regional career and technical centers, two are in academies and one is in a charter school. So there is no one agricultural education model in Maine.
Academies and High Schools in Maine
In the late 1700s and into the 1800s education in Maine consisted of a hodgepodge of hundreds of independent school districts. One-room schoolhouses were the most common type of school. In larger towns, one might find a high school.
However, private schools that offered room and board for students were common. By the middle of the 19th century, there were at least 25 private academies founded by the residents of towns across the state, funded by tuition and donations. The 1873 Free High School Act required towns to either establish public high schools supported by state funds, or to pay tuition to private academies to educate their residents — an arrangement that exists to this day.
Twelve of the original private town academies currently operate in Maine. One of these is the Fryeburg Academy which was chartered in 1792. Fryeburg Academy is a co-educational secondary boarding and day school. Six hundred and eighty students attend Fryeburg Academy of which 195 are boarding students from across the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. There are students from 30 different countries. The Academy also serves as the high school for the Maine School Administrative District 72.
The Fryeburg Academy web site states that in 1937 “…vocational and agriculture courses are offered. Agriculture courses have practical value for students who work on the dairy farms, and the Academy’s farm maintains a dairy herd of thirty-eight cows.”
Figure 1. Photo from the Fryeburg Academy Web Site accompanying the 1937 historical fact.
Jennifer Solter Jones – Our Guest Columnist
It is a pleasure to introduce Jennifer Solter Jones as our guest columnist for this Footnote. She is the agriculture teacher/FFA advisor at the Fryeburg Academy and will share her teaching experience with us and educate us more about Fryeburg Academy. Take it away Jennifer.
Agricultural Education/FFA At Fryeburg Academy
Nestled in the foothills of the White Mountains sits the small town of Fryeburg, ME. To the outsider, Fryeburg is the classic quiet little Maine town where everyone knows everyone, where many major holidays are celebrated with a town parade, and where for one week a year, our population increases 10 fold during the local fair. Here, in the center of town, is the school where I teach. Fryeburg Academy, established in 1792, is a private boarding school following the tradition of town academies throughout New England. We serve both day and boarding student populations, taking students not only from the local sending towns but from towns across the United States and around the world. We currently have roughly 680 students from over 30 countries.
Figure 2. Fryeburg Academy
Teaching in this environment is unique to anywhere else I have been and not without its challenges. Although Fryeburg Academy has had a tradition of agriculture education throughout the years, before I arrived 4 years ago, the last time we had an active FFA Chapter and year long agriculture courses was in the 50’s. Because of our private nature we don’t qualify for traditional sources of funding that other career and technical programs do so I work to use our limited funds wisely, apply for grants to help get needed materials, and fundraise to support student travel to different FFA events. Our program also doesn’t look like a traditional CTAE program, I only see students for 45 minutes a day, my classes are part of the science department and I don’t have any workshop, barn or greenhouse space (yet). Before the program closed in the 50’s we had 300 head of dairy cattle that students helped milk and manage every day. Today we are building the program back up with an eye on current technologies as well as helping students to make informed decisions about their food and natural resources even if they aren’t actively farming themselves.
Being in a small town in Maine, although limited in our physical classroom spaces, we do have access to some wonderful outdoor spaces. Our most active learning space we have is our small school garden that has solar powered irrigation where we raise vegetables for the school cafeteria. This past season we grew a variety of primarily greens such as kale, bok choy, romaine and leaf lettuce that we provided to the school cafeteria. We also grew pumpkins that were used in fall celebrations around campus, cucumbers that were used in the ag classes to teach about food science, and various flowers that were used as pollinator attractors for our fall citizen science project.
We use students in our May Term class (a three week end of year program that is very hands on and most similar to a traditional CTAE program) to help plant out the school garden, student interns and a couple staff help manage the garden over the summer, and the fall sees ag ed students learning about soils, cover cropping, and maintaining and harvesting from the garden for as long as we can.
Other spaces we access include our local town forest to learn about various natural resource topics. We are also able to visit many different small-scale farms through various alumni and local connections that are excited to nurture and support our growing program. I am lucky enough to have a supportive department head and school administrators as well as our board of trustees (several of which are local farmers themselves).
I came to teach at Fryeburg in a full circle kind of way. Growing up, I went to Fryeburg Academy as a day student from one of the sending towns. At the time I was active in the local 4-H community and dreamed of becoming a vet. Fryeburg didn’t have any ag ed classes, so I took honors and AP courses to help prepare me best for college. Once in college I learned about high school level ag ed from some of my friends who had been FFA members. Once I learned about this, I realized that this path was my calling and I worked to become an ag teacher earning my BS in Animal science and my MA in Curriculum and Instruction afterwards. My masters work and student teaching was done in Connecticut which gave me a great foundation for what ag ed can look like with resources and a supportive Department of Education I began my teaching career in New Hampshire which has a small but thriving FFA community with great students and supportive advisors who quickly welcomed me to their state. I learned so much there but ultimately when a position at my alma mater opened up, I took the risk to join a new program in order to provide students with an experience that I myself wish I’d had. My job at Fryeburg Academy has brought me home and I’m grateful for all of my past experiences because I get to lean on them daily here.
Some things that my students and I enjoy doing throughout the year include a project at the beginning of the year that introduces them to a wide variety of different types of agriculture from permaculture to silviculture, aquaculture and others. We take opportunities to visit the Fryeburg Fair, one of the oldest and largest in New England, behind only the Big E. We take time around Christmas to learn about ag business and how to make traditional Christmas wreaths. In the spring we learn about animal science including hatching out chickens and working with various classroom visitors of the four-legged kind. We help to plan the school garden by working with the head chef to organize our seed purchases to ensure we grow things he can easily use in his menus. Usually at the same time as we are garden planning we are starting our maple sugaring unit where we tap trees around campus and take a couple days to boil off the sap, ending the season with a pancake celebration. At the end of the year we are learning about plants, growing our garden starts and doing a final research project while also working in trips to the Boston Zoo and local farms.
I didn’t come in thinking this would be an instant success but every year I have seen growth in the number of students participating in my classes, in the activities I bring my FFA members to, in our fundraising efforts and community service projects and that’s all I can hope for. Nothing ever changes quickly in a small town, but with time, we are growing something incredible that I’m proud of. Bringing back agriculture to Fryeburg Academy sees students from all walks of life from all over the world getting a chance to understand where their food comes from.
Figure 3. The Sun-Journal, Lewiston, Maine, February 2, 2023
Concluding Remarks
Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing with us. The one lesson we can learn from this Footnote is that a dedicated teacher can make a difference and agricultural education is needed in all types of communities and schools.