Schooling
Valley schools have long been unique due to their schedules, religious influence and language conflicts through the years.
Early Schooling
Schooling in the St John Valley was traditionally done in one room schoolhouses until the 20th century due to how spread apart the population was at the time. Unique schedules were characteristic of these schools because they would close for a period so the children could work the potato harvest, and also would close during the harshest winter months, which made travel difficult at the time. Many school districts still have these elements in their schedules today.
Religion in Schools
The Catholic Church played a big role in the counties history, building many of the institutions in the area which are now public. An example of this is the "Daughters of Wisdom" who came to the valley in the early 1900's when the clergy was banned from teaching in France. Here, they began teaching in public schools, eventually to build a convent, boarding school, elderly homes and hospitals and, in many cases taught whether the town could pay them or not. The school they built is also of significance because it was a school for women, offering women the opportunity of higher education in the valley for the first time. As many of the schools once again became public, the issue of separation of church and state became increasingly prominent. Wisdom public high school, which stands in the place of  the high school established by the Sisters of Wisdom, has a church on it's grounds to this day and until the past couple decades would take breaks in the day of classes to leave the public school building and go to the church for prayer.
English in Schools
Valley schools became the cite of one of the most glaring examples of ethnic suppression in the state's history. When the territory was acquired, the state made a law that said "grammatical french" must be taught in schools, in an effort to replace the Acadian dialect of "valley french" with Parisian french, which was proper in their eyes. However, as tensions between French and English people in the rest of the State increased, a law as passed in 1919 that French is banned from schools along with all other public buildings, with language in a teacher handbook going as far to say it is a teachers duty to make sure french is not spoken in class, the playground, or even away from school. Punishing students for speaking french in Maine schools was fairly common all the way up until 1990. This example of a state attempting to "Americanize" an ethnic population is especially troubling in the case of the Brayons, whose Acadian and French ancestors had inhabited the land they lived on since before the existence of the United States, and had governed itself for a long period thereafter.
Religious Life
The Catholic Church plays a prominent role in life in the Madawaska region. Driving through the Valley you will see personal and public shrines and religious symbols scattered across the roadside. Members of the Church are recognized as prominent community members and involvement in church charities, the clergy and catholic societies such as the Knights of Colombus and the Daughters of Isabella are common. Driving through the valley you will see some of the most beautiful churches in the State, and plenty of them at that. This is a picture of a shrine at the site where the Acadian refugee families that founded the settlement planted a cross along the river when they landed, it is presented alongside an Acadian flag as a commemoration and memorial of the nation.
Folk Catholicism
Like their cousins in the Maritimes and Louisiana, the Valley's residents perform many folk religion practices derived from Acadia and their peasant ancestors in France. Some common examples are prayers and ceremonies intended to heal hurt and sick individuals. Another example is the distribution of holy water to parishioners who use it to sprinkle around the house for protection in storms, as well as other things.