Mt. Ararat High School’s Allyson Gilbert became a teacher because she was inspired by teachers. She still is.
As one of four finalists for the title of 2025 Maine Teacher of the Year, she is excited to have the opportunity to highlight the work of educators across Sagadahoc County and throughout her home system, Maine School Administrative District 75, which consists of Bowdoin, Bowdoinham, Harpswell and Topsham.
“I think what’s really unique about the Maine Teacher of the Year program is it’s not just ‘Here’s your sash and your crown and congratulations,'” Gilbert said. “They call it a year of service and that’s very much what it is. It’s a big time commitment and it comes with a lot of responsibility and workload in addition to your regular job.”
But there are far-reaching benefits that Gilbert has already experienced.
“Making connections with not just other educators but with other champions of education has been incredibly powerful,” Gilbert said.
The Maine Teacher of the Year program is a collaboration between the nonprofit Educate Maine and the Maine Department of Education. The program’s mission is “to honor and celebrate excellence in teaching and elevate the importance and impact of the teaching profession with a goal of inspiring both current and future teachers.”
The 2025 Maine Teacher of the Year will be announced in October, according to the Maine Department of Education. The winner will represent the state in the National Teacher of the Year program and will serve throughout the year as an advocate for education, the teaching profession, and Maine schools and students.
Gilbert was nominated for the honor by Mt. Ararat chemistry teacher Suzie Brawn.
“Ally is a gem of a human, and an even bigger treasure as an educator!” Brawn wrote in an email. “She provides (students) not only with an education, but also a safe space in our building to be authentic and blossom into their greatest versions of themselves. … She advocates for students more profusely than any other educator I know.”
Gilbert grew up in the Oxford Hills region of Maine, the daughter of Rick Gilbert, a banker, and Lori Pacholski, an elementary school teacher and principal. While environmental science became her passion, as a kid she had little interest in the natural world. She was none too fond of bugs and “didn’t want to touch dirt,” she said.
That all changed in her sophomore year of high school. Her biology teacher, Sasha Rancourt-Thomas, used multiple approaches, from lectures to debates to cut-and-paste diagrams to hands-on learning, to ensure her students understood the scientific concepts she was presenting.
For the first time, Gilbert saw science as a topic of interest and as a potential career.
“This one teacher changed my entire outlook,” she said.
She didn’t realize at the time that her newfound fascination with science would lead to a career in education.
As the daughter of an educator, she flirted with the idea of teaching, but her mother initially discouraged her from pursuing the profession.
Instead, she attended Salve Regina University in Rhode Island and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences.
But while she loved learning about the natural world and initially planned to work in preventative medicine as a genetics counselor, she found that she did not love spending her days bent over a microscope.
“I just couldn’t do it forever,” she said.
As it turns out, another teacher, one even closer to home, had left a lasting impact on her.
“There was this one moment I remember so vividly,” Gilbert said. “I was home and my mother was doing some literacy intervention at the time and she came in for dinner and she was just beaming, like the happiest I’d seen her ever, and she was talking about how one of her students had finally tested out of reading recovery. She had been working with him for three years. And I just kept thinking, I want that. I want to be that happy because I’ve made a difference to someone else.”
Gilbert’s shift toward education was cemented by a year as a volunteer teacher in American Samoa with the nonprofit WorldTeach. Upon her return to Maine, she applied for every open position she found. When she interviewed with the science department at Mt. Ararat in Topsham, she knew she had found her place.
“They didn’t just need a science teacher,” she said. “They were looking for someone to be part of their community.”
With a degree in her subject area and her experience with WorldTeach, Gilbert was hired as a conditional teacher and completed her certification within her first year. She has since gone on to obtain a master’s degree in wildlife conservation and management from Unity Environmental University.
Six years in, Gilbert is deeply embedded in the Mt. Ararat community. She teaches ninth grade Earth science and 10th grade biology, as well as an elective on science in film. The first movie students will watch in class this year is “The Martian,” with an accompanying lesson on hydroponics and nutrient cycles.
Gilbert started the 2024-2025 school year with a tour of the classroom — not just the layout and safety features, but also the snack basket, the cereal dispenser stocked with Fruit Loops, and the array of “take what you need” bins of toiletries and school supplies.
She explained that a critical part of her belief system as a teacher involves finding ways to limit outside distractions that can hinder students’ ability to learn.
Snacks “will not solve all their problems,” she said. “But in that moment, I know that they will not be hungry.”
In addition to classwork, Gilbert helps develop curriculum for the advisory program and addresses truancy and tardiness as part of the attendance team. She is the advisor for Mt. Ararat’s class of 2027. And she works with a group of colleagues to enhance motivation and well-being among staff and faculty.
Gilbert also helps run the travel program at Mt. Ararat, taking students abroad for STEM-based learning opportunities. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
During a trip to Belize last year, students searched riverbeds for mud turtles as part of a conservation study. They learned about ecology and botany on hikes and helped monitor bat populations. They snorkeled and took boat rides to observe manatees in their environment. They dissected lionfish in an effort to determine how to use the invasive species as a food source.
“We did some really cool things,” Gilbert said.
This year’s trip to Panama will focus on wetlands and waterways, with specific attention to engineering. Students will learn about the Panama Canal, how it drives the country’s economy, and how Panama strives to maintain wetland ecosystems alongside canal-based commercial industries.
Outside of class, Gilbert loves hiking, camping and swimming. And she’s proficient in what she calls “Grandma skills,” such as crochet, embroidery and jigsaw puzzles.
While Gilbert may have followed a nontraditional path into teaching, she sees education as a calling.
“I don’t think this is a profession that people just fall into,” she said. “They know the impact that teachers can make and they want to be part of creating the future generation that’s better than the one before it.”
For her, that impact starts with “trying to build positive relationships and connections” with each student. She wants them to know that when they arrive in her classroom, “we’re not necessarily just talking about science.”
“I’m interested in what they did that weekend. I want to know how they’re feeling, because if they’re not coming to my class ready to learn, then there’s no point,” she said. “Getting them to that point where they’re ready and able to learn is my top priority.”
