The local school board has reversed course and postponed indefinitely a move by some of its members to end a long-standing policy of rotating the chair position by town each year.
In a public meeting on Thursday, April 11, members of the Maine School Administrative District 75 Board of Directors voted unanimously to put the proposal on hold after hearing pleas from former board members and others not to change the policy.
Still, some current board members said they may revisit the proposed change after doing additional research. MSAD 75 covers Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham.
Several former longtime board members argued during the meeting’s public comment session that the town rotation helps develop more members into experienced leaders. They included David Johnson, Joanne Rogers, and Linda Hall, all of Harpswell.
“Don’t play with something that works,” Rogers told the board. “Give each town its turn … because that’s what we agreed upon when we came into the district back in the ’70s.”
Some who spoke also criticized the way the proposal had been introduced in late March without advance public notice.
“I wanted to thank everybody who came here and spoke tonight, especially the former chairs and board members who have reached out over the last couple of weeks to share their wisdom and thoughts,” board member Ryan Larsen said. Larsen, of Harpswell, chairs the board’s Policy Committee.
At an earlier meeting on March 28, five board members from Topsham and one from Harpswell had voted to introduce the proposed policy change, which they had argued would give the 14-member board more direct control over its leadership. That vote’s outcome was a tie, but the motion carried because of the district’s vote-weighting system based on town populations.
However, the board’s current chair, Hutson Hayward, of Bowdoinham, later asked the board to rescind the March 28 vote, saying it had violated board policy because it was taken without advance public notice. The board voted unanimously to rescind it.
The Policy Committee had taken up the proposal after a related discussion at a board leadership workshop, but Larsen acknowledged at the April 11 meeting that some community members had interpreted it as a way for the board’s majority to silence dissenting voices.
“That was never the intent of this,” Larsen said. “But … I want them to know that they are heard, and that it’s important for them to be heard.”
Current policy stands
Under the current policy, the board’s chair and vice chair are chosen via a town rotation, with board members from the coming year’s designated towns — one for chair and the other for vice chair — caucusing to choose their representatives. Board leaders are chosen in April and start serving July 1 of each year.
The current policy states: “The position of Chair and Vice-Chair shall rotate through the membership by town using the following order: Topsham, Bowdoin, Harpswell, and Bowdoinham. In the event that the membership from a specific town is unable to nominate a candidate for Chair or Vice-Chair when it is its turn, the nomination will move to the next town in the order.”
It adds: “The Vice-Chair holds the position of chair of the Finance Committee. It is expected that the Vice-Chair will be elected to the position of Board Chair the following year.”
Under the proposed change, the chair instead would have been chosen from among all sitting board members with at least one year of experience and could have served for up to three consecutive terms if the board chose to reelect them.
The town rotation would have survived, but only for the vice chair position, and the board still would have been empowered to reject any vice chair nominee opposed by the majority of its members.
The proposed policy stated: “To nominate a candidate for Vice-Chair, the town representatives will caucus. Once chosen, the nomination will be presented to the Board for approval. In the event the Vice-Chair nominee does not win Board approval, the town representatives may caucus again and select a new nominee. If the membership from a specific town is unable to nominate a candidate for Vice-Chair, the nomination will move to the next town in the order.”
Under the proposed revamp, the board’s vice chair would have continued to serve as Finance Committee chair. The order of the town rotation wouldn’t have changed, but it would no longer have been used to select a chair.
Hayward, of Bowdoinham, is the board’s current chair, and Amy Spelke, of Topsham, is its vice chair.
Bowdoin is next in line to select a vice chair, who would typically go on to be chair the following year under the existing policy. Its current board members are Brandy Robertson and Jim Moulton. Harpswell will choose the next vice chair after Bowdoin.
Benefit or threat?
At the March 28 meeting, several board members had voiced support for the policy change, saying it would discourage parochialism among board leadership and give members more flexibility and choice.
Board member Gregory Greenleaf, of Harpswell, had said he supported the policy change because it would expand the pool of available candidates for board leadership and promote broader representation. Five board members from Topsham had agreed.
“I think electing board officers by town rotation suggests that, fundamentally, we are town agents, and our task is to get the most for our town and to look past the needs of other communities,” Greenleaf had told the board. “And even if some members of the public or … our board may feel disadvantaged by the new leadership selection process, that does not mean we should allow a perception that is not a reality shape how we choose the chair.”
Board member Kim Pacelli, of Topsham, also had spoken favorably about the proposed policy change. Pacelli said the board’s current leadership selection process is surprisingly rigid and may be contributing to a recent high turnover rate among district leadership.
“I joined this board because I was greatly concerned about stability for this district,” she said. “My interest is, admittedly, quite piqued about an opportunity to contemplate whether a more flexible mechanism for this board to elect its leadership from year to year could only continue to promote the kind of stability that many of us care about.”
But on MSAD 75’s Facebook page, a group of residents including former board Chair Kim Totten, of Bowdoin, had criticized the proposed change as a way to prevent Robertson, one of the Bowdoin board members, from eventually becoming chair.
“I believe they are pushing this now because it is Bowdoin’s turn and they do not want (Robertson) to take on that role,” Totten wrote. “They may deny that but the optics suggest otherwise.”
Robertson has often clashed ideologically with other board members and was accused of micromanagement and conservative agenda-pushing by former Superintendent of Schools Steven Connolly, who resigned in 2023 after less than a year on the job.
Robertson has denied the accusation and said her primary concern has been making sure the district follows its own rules. She was absent from the March 28 board meeting when the initial vote to introduce the policy change took place.
At the April 11 meeting, Robertson criticized the March 28 vote for violating board policy and put forward a successful motion to postpone consideration of the policy change. She noted that a previously scheduled public workshop to discuss the proposal had been canceled by the board.
“It’s clear from our community that this (policy change) is not something they’d like to move forward with,” she said. “I think this is something we’d like to revisit in the future … that we should have that public (workshop) that has been requested so that we can thoughtfully work through this.”
Correction: This story was updated at 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, April 16, to reflect that the proposed policy change emerged from a school board leadership workshop.
Have a comment or news tip? Email J. Craig Anderson at craig@harpswellanchor.org.
