Head of Maine’s botched unemployment system named to top child welfare post

The state employee who led the scrutinized launch of a new unemployment system is Maine’s new top child welfare official.

The Bangor Daily News reports that former unemployment compensation bureau director John Feeney started work Monday as chief operating officer of the state Office of Child and Family Services.

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An idiot in charge of assholes.

Maine lawmaker wants to limit childhood vaccination exemptions

Some Mainers are gearing up for a fight over the future of the state’s philosophical exemption for childhood vaccinations, a battle that is expected to play out during the upcoming legislative session. That’s because many Maine families are choosing against vaccinating their children, and some lawmakers would like to change that. Nationally, nearly 2 percent of parents chose not to immunize their kindergartners for non-medical reasons last year. In Maine, 5 percent of parents of public and private school children decided against immunization, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Winslow and Waterville schools to introduce anonymous threat-reporting system

The around-the-clock app, website and hotline service, called Say Something, could be implemented at area schools by June. The system was developed by families of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

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Advocacy group sues state for records of suicide attempts at Long Creek

Disability Rights Maine says it received reports of 5 attempted suicides between March and July at the juvenile detention facility in South Portland and has been seeking records from the state with little success.

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Homeless with 4 kids, a Bangor man called nearly 100 landlords to find a place to live

When Lawrence Bergeron and his four teenage grandchildren were evicted from their Bangor apartment in March, they had nowhere to go but their Toyota minivan. For about the next six months, the family slept sitting up in their car seats, as the 52-year-old grandfather searched in desperation for a place that would accept his federally subsidized housing voucher.

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No More Snow Days? Maine District Tests Controversial Policy

In Camden, Maine, the first snow day of the school year might be the last.

Starting in December, the MSAD 28 school district, which includes Camden and four surrounding towns, will try "remote school days" instead of giving the students a day off.

Teachers will assign work for students to do at home. Grades K-6 will complete non-technology-based projects, and grades 7-12 will be required to complete assignments online. If they turn in their work on time, it will count as a day of instruction. It will be a work day for teachers, too — they will have to be online and responding to students over email.

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Kids group wants to hear from the front lines of Maine’s child welfare system

An organization that advocates for Maine kids is seeking feedback on ways the state can improve its child welfare system after the highly publicized deaths of two young girls, allegedly at the hands of their caregivers, within the past year.

While Maine lawmakers passed a set of changes last summer that were meant to close gaps in the system and included $21.2 million in new funding, the Maine Children’s Alliance believes more needs to be done and that any improvements must be guided by people working within the system.

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