Cheers to the convoy of Maine Department of Transportation workers who loaded up their heavy equipment and headed to Vermont on Tuesday to help our neighbors in distress.

Nearly 150 MDOT workers, along with their loaders and excavators on flatbed trailers, left for a two-week stint to rebuild bridges and roadways damaged two weeks ago by Tropical Storm Irene.

Vermont was ravaged by rains much heavier than we endured in Maine, causing millions of dollars in damage.

Vermont is rushing to repair as much damage as possible before it becomes too cold to lay asphalt.

Sending the workers west means they will not be working in Maine. Still, it makes us all feel good to support a neighbor in need.

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We’d love to give a cheer to Sheriff Guy Desjardins and the staff at the Androscoggin County Jail for receiving a near-perfect mark in a recent state inspection.

But it is difficult to see how a facility that has had two inmate deaths in the past year, one by suicide, can receive a 99.2 percent score in a comprehensive state examination.

Yet, that’s the mark the jail received from the state, which applauded the staff for doing just about everything right.

However, the facility has been beset by embarrassing staff discipline problems, employee lawsuits, low morale and endless contract negotiations.

In one incident, jail guards tied a fellow guard to an office chair and sent him on an elevator ride. In another, a young jailer was choked in a headlock by his supervisor.

That’s hardly model performance.

To be fair, the jail now has a completely different role than it had when it was last inspected two years ago. Since joining the state’s network, it has grown more crowded, often exceeding its 160-inmate design capacity, and it has a more difficult mix of inmates.

“It hasn’t been an easy road in the last three years,” Desjardins told the Sun Journal. “But here we are.”

Here, indeed. Let’s hope the state inspection marks a turning point for the sheriff and the jail.

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Cheers to Jay math teacher Annette Girardin, who isn’t happy with simply “meeting” standards. She is determined to exceed them.

“Technically, if you teach a level above the kids, you actually bring the bottom up,” the 32-year education veteran told the Sun Journal.

Girardin has always taught math, first at Dexter Regional High School for 15 years, then at Jay High School, which is now Spruce Mountain High School North.

This year, she is teaching advanced placement calculus, precalculus and advanced trigonometry.

Girardin was recently nominated by former student Devin Rose for a statewide honor: 2011 Maine Pulp and Paper Foundation Teacher of the Year.

She is sharing the honor with another dedicated teacher from Bangor High School.

A recent CNN story described how teachers are held in high regard in Finland and how that translates into exceptional parental support and student performance.

Asked why he went into the profession, one young teacher said, “Because it is the most honorable of all professions. It is a patriotic, national calling.”

Indeed, one of the education reforms we should be talking about in this country should be honoring standout teachers like Annette Girardin with the same professional respect, pay and support.

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