Maine taxpayers may have to foot the more than $20,000 bill for a motivational speaker to deliver a keynote address to educators at a Maine Department of Education (Maine DOE) event.
According to a document requesting a waive of competitive bidding filed Monday, the Maine DOE is seeking to spend $23,500 on having “Happiness Expert” and author Amy Blankson speak at an event celebrating the department’s Maine Online Opportunities for Sustained Education (MOOSE) program.
The MOOSE project, launched in response to the COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures, is an online learning platform that provides educators with a library of PreK-12 lesson modules.
Maine House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland), at a Juneteenth event last year, criticized the Maine DOE for relegating the history of African-Americans to the online MOOSE modules.
“For me to think that my history, in order for it to be taught, has to be put on a platform called MOOSE and not instructional in the classroom, is part of the oppressive, suppressive, supremist [sic] system and ideology that the Department of Education learned from,” Speaker Talbot Ross said, proceeding to call upon her listeners to storm the Capitol out of anger.
“We should all storm the institution, out of anger that this is the attitude that they’ve taken about our history,” she said. “We should be storming the Capitol. Really, I’m serious.”
According to Jennifer Page, MOOSE project manager and author of the grant request, “The MOOSE Celebration event is intended to not only thank the 700+ educators who have worked on MOOSE over the past 4 years, but also to resource them going forward as conscious innovators in their schools and communities.”
“The event will highlight their work and make deliberate connections to how the work they have done on MOOSE carries outside of the platform and has prepared them as teacher leaders in their own right,” Page wrote.
Justifying the $23,500 price tag on the motivational speaker, Page claimed that the keynote address “would elevate the messaging and outcomes of the event and honor the caliber of work that has been poured into the MOOSE project to this point.”
Amy Blankson, the Harvard College and Yale School of Management graduate and featured professor on Oprah’s “Happiness course” sought by the Maine DOE for their event “exemplifies the message we are trying to convey about educators as innovative agents of change in their communities,” Page wrote in the grant request.
“Amy understands the power of storytelling and will help to weave narrative into her presentation, helping educators see themselves in other individuals who have mobilized their communities for positive change,” Page wrote. “Her talk is action oriented and exemplifies the interdisciplinary, project based elements of MOOSE as she will use a combination of design thinking and experiential activities to help the educators experience how we can all be innovators if we act together with intention.”
Due to Blankson’s “global reach and influence,” the negotiated $23,500 taxpayer-funded costs is “on par with providers of similar caliber,” the grant request reads.
Well! That should get Maine’s school system back to the top of the list from the bottom.
they have gone insane, taxpayers need to reject this
Happiness for the “expert” speaker!
$23 grand for a canned 45 minute speech, free lobster rolls, and First Class travel and lodging accommodations. One a month, and you’re living large on the residuals.
You can’t fix stupid, but you can rifle it’s financial balance at will.
I wonder how these dolts to with scam phone calls.
were so happy we wanna get boffed ! lol, your right concerned citizen, “you can;’t fix stupid” but you can replace it ! so LETS GET ON REPLACING THE STUPID! vote them out at every turn!!!!!!! turn down alll the school board increases, its the only way to stop thes marxists
Does anyone believe Blankson ever had a real job? The same goes for the racist RTR..
Bob Marley, might give them a “deal” .
How can we protest/stop this?
I’d be “happy ” if we could do something to improve our state’s horrible student achievement scores.
We can’t get any funding for indoor air quality problems in the schools (i.e. mold, radon, etc.) but they can spend $23,000 for a Happiness Expert. You can’t make this stuff up.
Remember to vote in November .
Vote at EVERY election that you can .
Democrats need to be sent to the back of the room and told to be quiet .
We have to vote them out of every office that they run for .
Democrats are destroying our state .
Democrats need to go .
I wonder who they are going to get, Hunter is caught up in court.