Parallel Expands Across Five Maine Districts and School Unions

Parallel is working with five Maine districts and school unions this school year: Regional School Unit 73 (Spruce Mountain), MSAD 17 (Oxford Hills), MSAD 72 (Fryeburg), School Union 76 and AOS 98. AOS 98 continues a partnership that began as a pilot; the other four are new this year.

Where the districts are

RSU 73 serves 1,369 students across four schools in the Jay and Livermore Falls area. MSAD 17 serves 3,075 students across eight schools in the Oxford Hills. MSAD 72 serves 694 students across three schools around Fryeburg. School Union 76 covers Brooklin, Deer Isle-Stonington, Isle au Haut and Sedgwick, on and around the Blue Hill peninsula. AOS 98 covers the Boothbay region - Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Edgecomb, Southport and Georgetown.

Enrollment and school counts come from the NCES Common Core of Data, 2024-25. Maine's school unions and AOS structures are not listed as separate districts in that dataset, so figures are given only where NCES reports them.

What the partnerships cover

Across Maine, school districts are finding creative ways to ensure students continue receiving high-quality special education services, even as staffing needs and responsibilities evolve. This school year, Parallel is proud to partner with five Maine districts and school unions, supporting needs ranging from special education instruction and life skills programming to school psychology, evaluations, and social work. Each partnership looks a little different because each community does—and our goal is to build around the strong teams, programs, and relationships already in place.

That might mean pairing a Parallel special educator with experienced education technicians to support a hands-on life skills program built around cooking, beekeeping, and real-world learning, or helping a district expand its capacity to evaluate and support its youngest learners as responsibility for preschool special education shifts to local schools.    Pasted markdown    Pasted markdown In AOS 98, what began as a pilot has grown into an ongoing partnership, with the district renewing with Parallel again this year.    Pasted markdown

For us, that continued trust is what this growth across Maine is really about. One district leader described Parallel as feeling like “an add to rather than a burden”—and that’s exactly the kind of partner we strive to be: an extension of the district team that brings added capacity and expertise while keeping students, educators, and each community’s unique needs at the center.

How Parallel works with districts

Parallel providers are state-licensed clinicians who work with students over video, scheduled around the school day and coordinated with each district's special education team. Parallel operates as a School Official under FERPA and is ISO 27001 certified.