Dr. Carol Marcotte has been in Rotary for five years. Her roles have been secretary, board member, President, and currently Past President of the Rotary Club of Saco Bay Sunset. Carol completed her doctorate in School Administration & Supervision at Berne University International Graduate School in St. Kitts, West Indies. Her primary specialty areas include educational leadership and literacy instruction.
Carol’s education career started as a regular classroom and special education teacher. Multi-age and looping schedules were part of her classroom expertise as well as being a resource room teacher. Being passionate about school improvement and cultivating teacher leaders, she was a principal for 8 years. As a Senior Lecturer in the Educational Department at UNE, Carol’s primary responsibility is mostly Lead Instructor for the Certificates in Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) courses. She also teaches courses in the MSEd: Educational Leadership program. Carol enjoys being a University Supervisor to undergraduate student teachers in the Education department. In this role, she can visit K-12 schools and engage in current best practices with staff and administrators.
Supporting students through supporting teachers was her focus. Many teacher leaders were developed under Carol's expertise and guidance in both the schools where she was principal. She was nominated for Principal of the Year by her River View Community staff in South Gardiner, Maine.
Carol's next role was Director of Curriculum and Instruction in U#7 (Saco/Dayton, ME) where she led her staff and administrators through school reform. One of the accomplishments in school reform was working with the ME Department of Education staff with Continuous Improvement Priority Schools in the district. This work led to increased student achievement. Some of the aspects of this growth were building capacity by coaching teacher leaders, designing data teams to support student assessment and achievement, and leading professional development initiatives.
Carol has received the award of Maine Curriculum Leader of the Year. In addition, First Lady Barbara Bush presented Carol with the Maine Family Literacy Grant in 2006 and 2008.
Among her many passions is literacy. She was able to travel to Australia and New Zealand as a Principal at Margaret Chase Smith School in Sanford, ME, and bring back some rich literacy instruction to her staff. Part of her educational trip was observing teachers in Australian schools conducting Reading Recovery® lessons and Running Records with their students. Carol brought these Marie Clay practices back to her staff as they were implementing the same practices in their school.
Carol has been very involved in humanitarian efforts with St. Maarten to support the students and schools on the island after the Hurricane Irma devastation which resulted in donating over 1400 pounds of school supplies. She donated literature to the Santo Domingo Schools in New Mexico. In April 2019, she provided students with 20 new literature books for their classrooms. During July 2019, Carol traveled to Buffalo, Wyoming, and donated children's literature to the Johnson County Family Crisis Center as well as bringing children's books to the Player Development program in St. Maarten. Most recently she has visited New Mexico again and provided more children's literature and educational activities to the Kewa Pueblo and Santo Domingo Schools. Las Vegas, New Mexico is one of her favorite towns.
She is currently the Past President of the Rotary Club of Saco Bay Sunset and just wrote and received a District 7780 Disaster Relief Grant for $25,000. Her Club sponsored Project Bryukhovichi where they fixed the roof of the convent in Ukraine where over 30 young mothers and children are housed who have lost their loved ones in the war. Carol went to Poland and Ukraine during the summer of 2023 to meet her Rotary colleagues and bring supplies to a special needs group from Ukraine. She has been selected as one of six Rotarians who are on the Poland Outreach Committee and are going to Poland in spring 2024 for humanitarian work.
Carol is the Co-Chair of the Rotary District 7780 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee as well as a member of the District 7780 Recovery Committee. Carol is currently on the board of BELRAG.