Montello Elementary School second grade teacher Erica Gundersen talks Wednesday night about the dangers and obstacles she and fellow staff at the Lewiston school are facing in classrooms. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — Montello Elementary is struggling with academics and discipline as frustrated teachers seek a way out. Many say they fear for their safety at work as growing class sizes, fewer teachers and inadequate administrative support all worsen the long-standing issues.

Major school zoning changes in 2009 meant that students who lived in downtown Lewiston could only attend Montello Elementary. In the 15 years since the changes were put in place, an influx of high-needs students from the area has isolated Montello Elementary. Some teachers describe the existing situation as “segregation,” as more and more such students are directed to Montello each year.

The Sun Journal reached out to the school’s teachers and administrators following Monday’s school committee meeting, where several teachers came forward to voice concerns about rampant chaos in the classrooms and asked for help.

“I have 22 students in a room made for 16. If four to six of my students are out during a day, I can teach,” Jae Zimmermann, a fourth grade teacher at Montello, said. “But otherwise, I manage behaviors morning through afternoon, every day.”

“These behaviors are grounded in trauma. The traumas of poverty, migration, war, torn families, domestic violence, the opioid epidemic, homelessness. My students come to school with this as their context, and I’m expected to teach them fractions and how to be a good reader,” Zimmermann added.

While several past and present teachers and staff members shared their experiences of working at Montello Elementary, members of the school’s administration had not responded to Sun Journal requests by Friday afternoon.

Jamie Wrobel, formerly a sixth grade teacher at Montello Elementary, left last year after 11 years at the school. At some point, teaching sixth graders got scary for Wrobel. Students were pushing the limits of what they could get away with.

“You would leave for a meeting and hope it was quick because you knew you were coming back to a mess and even second graders knew, ‘I can get away with things for the next 40 minutes.’ It was very unsafe,” Wrobel said.

Even if teachers called for help, the response took a long time or did not come at all.

Montello Elementary School second grade teacher Erica Gundersen talks Wednesday night about the dangers and obstacles she and fellow staff at the Lewiston school are facing in classrooms. She said she has had students ask to leave with her because they felt unsafe and scared. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“There were so many times that we would say, ‘I had this unsafe thing happening and I called the front office, no one came,'” Wrobel recalled. “No one came for a long time or no one came at all. The kids knew that. And that’s where teaching sixth grade started getting scary because the kids knew they were going to have a good amount of time before someone came. It was scary that the kids were figuring that out,” she said.

Wrobel was hired with 14 others in 2011, one school year after the 2009 zoning changes, “during this big influx of staff,” Wrobel said. At the time, many experienced teachers had either transferred or left the district altogether, fearing what was to come.

“I really grew to love Lewiston but it was just too much, too much stress,” Wrobel said. “The secondary trauma piece of working with kids who came from difficult circumstances. I was finally like, ‘I can’t make that much of a difference here and I know that this (work environment) is not healthy,'” Wrobel explained.

Teachers are not the only ones who suffer under these conditions. Multilingual second grade teacher Erica Gundersen has had students ask to leave with her because they felt unsafe and scared staying in a particular classroom.

“They’ll say ‘take me with you.’ Another will say, ‘me too.’ It tears your skin off when you leave them there. They’re my children. I had them last year. I’ve got 20 years of children. Those are my kids,” Gundersen said.

“I have sent emails about particular kids and conflicts and it was not ever responded to,” Stephanie Poulin, the school’s social worker said.

“We tell admin, we ask admin, we go to admin and we are told, ‘I don’t have time,’ or we don’t get responses,” Gundersen added.

Montello Elementary School social worker Stephanie Poulin reacts Wednesday night while talking about the conditions she and fellow staff at the Lewiston school are facing. “There’s no instruction and there is no learning going on,” Poulin said. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

“What about the student who has just shown up to learn and all this chaos is happening around them?” Poulin asked. “I’ve seen it multiple times. A kiddo is sitting there thinking, ‘my teacher can’t control the room, it’s not safe, it’s not safe. An admin comes in, they do know better, it’s not safe, it’s not safe.’ We are now creating trauma and anxiety,” Poulin said.

“I have stepped into rooms where this is, in fact, happening and I’m pulling (aside) the kid that is in the corner, silently crying. Nobody else is noticing that kid because there’s too many crazy things going on. There’s a bit of peers fighting. The language towards adults. They know that their teacher has no authority. They see their teacher’s outnumbered. What else can they do?” Poulin said.

“There’s no instruction and there is no learning going on,” Poulin said. “I’m in those rooms all the time and (the students) are on their computers, they’re running around, they’re leaving the building.”

In the absence of qualified teachers, literacy coaches do the lesson plans. “They are being told to make it as simplistic as possible,” Poulin said. “You have children that are getting no education, but are being traumatized every day, and that is disgusting.”

“What’s happened over the years is we become more and more trauma impacted with less and less resources, bigger class sizes. They’re putting all these Band-Aids, just throwing on Band-Aids,” Poulin said. “We’re at the point where we’re hemorrhaging.”

“The class size was around 18. Now I’m hearing it’s 22 to 25,” Wrobel said. “Even though I left only one school year ago, it seems like things got worse in just one year. We have this district that prides themselves on their diversity, but we have segregation happening right in our district.”

Montello Elementary School social worker Stephanie Poulin talks Wednesday night about the dangers and obstacles she and fellow staff at the Lewiston school are facing. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

FEAR OF RETALIATION

Many teachers and staff at the school feel discouraged from speaking up.

“Because people who speak up or have things to say tend to then get targeted. All of a sudden you’re getting called into the office, ‘I have concerns about this meeting or that or what you said,'” Poulin said. “We already know what that means. That’s a potential write-off. It’s happened to multiple people.”

The school administration, including the principal and assistant principal, did not respond to Sun Journal questions by Friday afternoon.

According to Gundersen, some school committee members started paying attention only recently, with members Janet Beaudoin and Meghan Hird making an unannounced visit. Gundersen recalled seeing Superintendent Jake Langlais only once at the school.

“The (school committee) must be getting information from the superintendent, who’s getting information from the admin. They’re saying we’re getting a funneled, watered-down version,” Gundersen said. 

Superintendent Langlais did respond with an email. “We have received concerns from some staff as of late. We are working to address concerns on a few different fronts,” he wrote. “We continue to seek educators for open positions. Progress has been made but we have more work to do to support the Montello School Community,” Langlais wrote. “In addition to our efforts, we are asking all parents for their help. Self-awareness, self-control, and social awareness are areas of struggle for some students.”

“When we think about frontline staff, we’re forgetting about our maintenance people, our staff in the kitchen. We’ve had an insanely high turnover because it’s just too overwhelming for all aspects,” Poulin said.

“If you’re not going to fix it, why are we paid the same as other teachers that only have maybe three English-language learners in their class?” Wrobel asked.

In 2021, an attempt to reform the school district’s zoning was voted down.

“With the rising of (problematic) behaviors and poverty, I get it, you’re living over by McMahon or Geiger or in the other areas, and you don’t want your school now to be flooded,” Wrobel said. “That one attempt got voted down, and it’s just continued to get worse and worse.”

The front of Montello Elementary School on Wednesday afternoon. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal