Category: Education

After several months of discussion and debate, the local school board has unanimously approved its first-ever policy intended to protect transgender and gender-expansive students from bullying and discrimination.

The local school district announced schools would remain closed Friday as police continued to search for the perpetrator of two mass shootings Wednesday night in Lewiston that have left at least 18 people dead.

The local school district announced schools would remain closed Thursday as police continued to search for the perpetrator of two mass shootings Wednesday night in Lewiston that left at least 16 people dead.

The local school board has approved further changes to the district’s proposed anti-discrimination policy for transgender and gender-expansive students in an attempt to balance students’ privacy rights with parents’ right to be informed.

In a blow to social conservatives, the local school board’s Policy Committee has updated its proposed anti-discrimination policy for transgender and gender-expansive students to give schools more flexibility when deciding whether to notify parents or guardians that their child has asked to be recognized as trans.

A local school board member and former school district superintendent are warning against ongoing “micromanagement” of the superintendent’s office by at least one board member, revealing new details about the superintendent’s departure in an attempt to curb the behavior that pushed him to resign.

The local school board’s Policy Committee has updated its proposed anti-discrimination policy for transgender and gender-expansive students to address legal concerns around withholding information about a student’s gender identity from their parents or guardians.

The local school board is nearing adoption of its first-ever policy intended to foster a safe and accommodating environment for transgender and gender-expansive students.

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit public school districts like the shockwave from a nuclear blast. No one was prepared to make the drastic, immediate changes to how educators, students and their families would interact.

On June 2, 18 students graduated from Harpswell Coastal Academy in the school’s final commencement. Even as the school prepares to close, the graduates chose not to grieve the loss, but to celebrate their school and what it gave them.

Mt. Ararat High School senior Lydia Monks received the first Julie Dimperio Holowach Scholarship at the school’s senior awards ceremony on June 7.

Little more than 200 of Harpswell’s 4,600-plus voters turned out on Tuesday, June 13, but 85.2% of them supported the school district’s $52.8 million budget.

Maine School Administrative District 75 has chosen its director of special education, Heidi O’Leary, to serve as its interim superintendent of schools for the coming academic year.

Nearly 150 residents of Harpswell, Topsham, Bowdoin and Bowdoinham have endorsed the $52.8 million Maine School Administrative District 75 budget for the upcoming academic year.
The overwhelming approval of the district’s 6.5% budget increase occurred in a town meeting-style vote at Mt. Ararat Middle School’s Orion Performing Arts Center on Thursday, May 18. The meeting is the first step of a two-step voter approval process. Now the issue will go to a budget validation referendum on June 13.