MECHANIC FALLS — After more than 40 years serving Elm Street School in Mechanic Falls and the Regional School Unit 16 district, Mary Martin is stepping away from the board of directors later this year.

“Part of the reason why I’m thinking now is the time to kind of make that shift isn’t because I’m tired of that work, it’s that we have, I think, a strong superintendent now who lives within our district We’ve got good leadership within our schools. We’ve got, I think, a well informed and strong board,” she said. “So to me, it’s a good time to kind of make that transition.”

Martin still hopes to volunteer with the school district that has been her home for decades.

She was a student at Elm Street School in 1963 when she learned that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Martin said. She was also at the school as a teacher when the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1986, and during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. She also helped the district through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Martin started her career in 1974 at Maine School Administrative District 17 in Paris as a literacy specialist and third grade teacher. After about 10 years there, she started at Elm Street School, where she taught second grade and at times first grade.

She said she always enjoyed working with young children and had a commitment to literacy.

When she became principal of Elm Street School in 1997, she was able to broaden her focus to help support students in prekindergarten to ninth grade, she said.

Probably the biggest change Martin has seen over the course of her career in education is technology, she said. When she first started teaching, not a lot of technology was incorporated into education, but now there are many technology tools for teachers.

In her experience, technology has been a useful tool for teachers, she said.

However, other aspects of teaching have not changed, such as the need to be flexible when things happen to help students understand events and incidents, she said. Despite the pressures of teaching, which seem to have increased in recent years, the positive aspects of the job also have not changed.

Shawn Vincent, principal of Bruce Whittier Middle School in Poland, worked with Martin on the district’s administration team during the last few years she was principal of Elm Street School and his early years as Whittier principal.

His and Martin’s path crossed years earlier, however, when he attended the Elm Street School during the same time as her daughters, though he did not have Martin as a classroom teacher.

After becoming an administrator and working with Martin, he quickly came to respect her as an educator, he said.

“In administrative team meetings she was always there, just a voice of reason, just had a really clear perspective on who she was as a leader,” he said.

Personally, Vincent said he always enjoyed her handwritten notes. For all different occasions, Martin always had words of encouragement and positive things to say, he said. It is one of the ways she developed such strong connections with employees and colleagues.

“I’ve just always appreciated that personal touch from her,” Vincent said. “And I think that’s what a lot of people would speak to, is you just always felt truly cared for, and it was always genuine and specific and very personal.”

The people who worked for her had even more respect for her and looked to her as a competent leader, he said. Some of the teachers at his school worked under her before and they still hold her in high regard. He thinks her patient, understanding nature helped to build those strong connections.

“Some of those teachers have moved over to my building … and they always talk so highly of Mary and their experience working under her,” he said. “I just feel like that group of people would do anything for her because they just had the feeling that that she would do anything for them. She always had their backs.”

Martin retired as principal of the Mechanic Falls school in June 2011 to help care for her grandchildren. She said her family has always been her top priority and she was glad to help her daughter with child care.

However, she also felt a need to stay connected to the school district, which is why she decided to run for the school board, starting her first term in 2012. In that role, she helped usher the district through the COVID-19 pandemic, which were the most difficult years of her career, she said.

“It really was a time of having to rethink everything that we were doing as a school system and trying to align that with what we were being told we needed to do both federally and statewide,” she said. “So, it was definitely — it’s challenging.”

Though through the tough times, Martin said she felt fulfilled in her career and work on the school board. The connections have made her time as a teacher, principal and school board member in Mechanic Falls worth it, she said.

Being a teacher in the town where she grew up and continues to live has deepened her connection there, she said. Martin has taught several generations of some local families and she still gets stopped in public by former students on whom she made an impact.

“There really is strong connection here for me, strong roots here and you know it’s a town that’s given a lot to me and I guess this is my opportunity to kind of give it back,” she said.

As she pulls away from a more active role in local education, she said she hopes teachers hang on to the positive aspects of teaching, such as the joy that comes with watching kids learn and working with others who care about kids.

There are ways in which Vincent tries to emulate some of the leadership qualities he saw in Martin, he said. He always tries to promote leadership from within schools and helps teachers find their voice and develop leadership — all values he learned from Martin.

“I just feel like she set such a high bar for all of us as educators about the way that we should be in putting students first,” he said. “But then also knowing how to take care of teachers. She set such a high standard and she’s just been an absolute gift to work with. I’m so grateful for the time that I’ve had to work with her because I think it’s made a big difference in my own career.”