AUGUSTA —

, a seventh- and eighth-grade special education teacher at Bruce Whittier Middle School in Poland, is among the three finalists to become the 2013 Maine Teacher of the Year, the Maine Department of Education announced Monday.

The other 2013 finalists are Kathy Bousquet, a second- and third-grade teacher at Central School in South Berwick, and Beth Switzer, a fourth-grade teacher at Coastal Ridge Elementary School in York.

Shanning embeds learning into real-world experiences and connects students to the school and greater community through such efforts as the “MidKnight Fire-Slayers,” a partnership with the local fire department, according to the Maine Department of Education. She creates an environment of high engagement, challenge and support that inspires students to become more confident, capable and productive learners.

Bruce Whittier Middle School Principal Ayesha Farag-Davis wrote that Shanning is a special educator in a self-contained classroom who has great power to connect and engage with students.

“Many of her students have developed a sense of themselves as incapable and helpless as learners,” Farag-Davis said. Shannon meets each student where they’re at, helps them develop goals, provides the instruction, encouragement “and occasional kick in the pants necessary to help them achieve their goals.”

The principal spoke of one special ed student who moved from a nearby town and had a history of being defiant and sometimes violent. Shanning welcomed him. Her “warmth, consistency and confident in him had an immediately impact,” Farag-Davis wrote.

His mother was teary-eyed at the first progress meeting when told of the boy’s success in Shannon’s classroom, Farag-Davis said. “It’s not the first time parents have cried tears of joy and gratitude for the time and energy Shannon puts in with their kids.”

A Poland couple wrote that their grandson had a traumatic brain injury that left him in special education with behavioral problems. He had low self-esteem, little self-control and often came home from school in tears or vowing never to return. After he became one of Shannon’s students, “Most days now he comes home with a smile and tells us what a good day he has had.”

The three state finalists will complete a final interview before the 2013 Maine Teacher of the Year is selected.

Review panel members participating in this year’s selection process included past Teachers of the Year, principals, Department of Education staff, members of the State Board of Education and the business community. The 2013 Maine Teacher of the Year will be announced at a surprise all-school assembly in September.

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