CALAIS — Calais Middle/High School is testing OrangePasses, a digital hall pass system by ReachMyTeach, through a free trial that could lead to full adoption in the 2026‑27 school year.
The mobile app aims to simplify how schools manage hall passes.
ReachMyTeach, based in Portland, was cofounded in 2021 by a former Deering High School student and two of his teachers to better serve Maine’s diverse student population.
As a student at Deering, Aidan Blum Levine coded the first version of the ReachMyTeach communications app as a school project with help from his computer science teacher, Jeff Borland, who later became a company cofounder, according to a 2022 story in the Portland Press Herald.
The cross‑communication app helps teachers connect with students whose first language is not English. A teacher writes a message in English, the app translates it into the student’s preferred language and the student’s reply is translated back into English for the teacher to read.
“We were in a district with 56 different languages spoken,” Helen Cohen, the company’s CEO and a former English language learner instructor, told WMTW last year, describing the need that inspired the program. Cohen also cofounded ReachMyTeach.
The app includes video‑calling options, on‑call interpreters and customized group messaging.
Since launching ReachMyTeach, the company has added OrangePasses, which allows students to initiate a pass for teacher approval and tracking, to its suite of educational software.
Another tool invented with student participation at Deering High School, OrangePasses was originally conceived by Courtney Jackson, as her senior capstone. She was assisted by fellow student, Israk Arafat and ReachMyTeach’s Borland. After high school, while attending schools within the University of Maine system, the students continued to work, together, on it through the Black Bear Consulting Corps and Jackson continues to work on it to this day.
Calais Middle/High School, or CMHS, is now testing OrangePasses through a free trial that runs until early June, at the end of the 2026 school year. The district is expected to decide afterward whether to purchase it.
More than 75 schools in Maine use OrangePasses, according to the company. The state lists several of them, including Cony Middle and High School in Augusta, Gorham Middle School, Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Norway and Winslow High School.
CMHS Principal Dean Preston said at a Calais School Board meeting in late April that systems like this typically cost upward of $2,000. But after the free trial, if Calais chooses to adopt OrangePasses, the district expects to pay about $1.30 per student per year — about $400 total.
OrangePasses is available in both the Google Play store and the Apple App Store, allowing students to use it on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, or on school‑issued laptops like Chromebooks or MacBooks.
Digital hall passes are reported to increase teacher efficiency by reducing the time spent filling out paper passes and by cutting down on hall traffic and student tardiness.
According to a report by Lincoln Public Schools in Lincoln, Nebraska, one middle school’s overall tardiness‑to‑class numbers dropped 28 percent from the previous semester after switching to a digital pass system. The school also saw improvements in academics and behavior expectations.
Preston said CMHS administrators hope it is not a “pay‑for‑what‑you‑get” situation. That is why the district has chosen to complete the free trial during the remainder of the 2025‑26 school year before committing to the low‑cost solution for the upcoming year.
Since founding ReachMyTeach, Aidan has graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in computer science and engineering and is now part of the company’s leadership team.
In other matters, Preston announced at the May 13 School Board meeting that CMHS would retain block scheduling after teachers at a previous meeting questioned the transparency of a proposed schedule change.
Preston said information gathered while evaluating whether to keep block scheduling revealed several areas of focus for CMHS, including helping teachers use their 70‑minute time blocks more effectively without altering the current schedule.
This story was updated May 27 to add that Courtney Jackson is the founding creator of OrangePasses and a former student of Deering High School. The idea was conceived as a senior capstone project and assisted by a fellow student, Israk Arafat and teacher and ReachMyTeach co-founder, Jeff Borland. Arafat and Jackson worked on it, while in college at the University of Maine school system, and Jackson works on it today. Additionally, the number of Maine schools using OrangePasses was updated.
