SKOWHEGAN — Eight candidates from Skowhegan are vying for four seats on the Maine School Administrative District 54 School Board.
Skowhegan residents are to decide from among the candidates Tuesday. The winners will serve three-year terms.
Incumbent School Board members are Jeannie Conley, Karyn Curran, Annmarie Dubois and Margaret Lovejoy. Challenging them are Laura Kaiser, James Keithan, Michelle Kelso and Amy Verville, all four of whom appear to be running together and say they have been endorsed by state Rep. Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan.
Conley said she and her three siblings are graduates of Skowhegan Area High School. Her mother taught in MSAD 54 and brought up a family of educators, according to Conley.
Conley said she is running for reelection to ensure children in the district get the best possible education. She emphasized the need to take care of area educators and retain them.
“Our support staff is so important to our district,” Conley said, “and we need to make sure their needs are met as well.”
She said she is excited to continue her work on committees and see construction of the new elementary school in Skowhegan through to completion.
Curran said she and her husband have raised three children who attended Skowhegan schools. She was a substitute school nurse for a few years before serving on the School Board, volunteered in the classroom when her children were in elementary school and served as a boosters officer for boys’ basketball and baseball.
“I would like to return to serving on the board, after a six-year break, because I have always been interested in helping to support the education of our schoolchildren,” Curran said.
“The schools are the center of our communities and are paramount to the well-being of our region, state and country. I feel that my past experience has given me the knowledge to be an informed and empathetic member of the board.”
Dubois said she is also a graduate of Skowhegan schools. She has four children and two grandchildren who have previously been or are enrolled in the Skowhegan school system. Through her work with the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program, Dubois said she has worked at area elementary schools for 10 years.
Dubois is running for reelection to be involved in the decision-making for how education is provided in the community.
“(I’m running) to ensure special education is a focus of the district, diversity is recognized and individual and unique needs are protected,” she said.
Kaiser said she, Keithan, Kelso and Verville are running for the School Board to ensure children get the educational experience they deserve.
“Our objective is to oversee that (children) are receiving the education that will allow them to be a productive member of society, as well as having the skills necessary to achieve a comfortable and rewarding life,” Kaiser said.
The mother of two and grandmother to one, Kaiser has written in postings to Facebook that she wants to provide parents with information about their children’s curriculum. She said she would also like to prioritize school safety, and ensure students’ rights are being upheld.
Keithan said he is running for the School Board to improve the education system. He wants to see standardized testing scores improve to show taxpayers their investment in education is paying off. One idea he has to achieve that would be removing “distractions” from classrooms.
“One-hundred percent of the teachers I spoke to that work at the high school mentioned that cellphones and their use causes students to lose focus,” Keithan said.
He also said he would like to prioritize school safety, adding that having resource officers at schools is of paramount importance. Keithan said he wants fewer discussions of politics by the School Board and more focus on education.
“The partisan fighting about political agendas on both sides of the political aisle is very frustrating as a citizen and taxpayer,” he said.
Lovejoy said she has been actively involved in MSAD 54 for decades as a parent, teacher, School Board member, volunteer and community member. She taught kindergarten and first grade from 1977 to 2005, and then tutored and volunteered in the district for some time after until the COVID-19 pandemic. Lovejoy has a son who attended area schools from first grade through high school, she said.
Lovejoy said she is running for the board because education is her passion. Her goals will be threefold, if reelected: “To continue to support teachers, support staff and administrators in providing quality programs for our children. To continue to represent the community in the construction of our new school. To continue to be a board member that acts cooperatively and respectfully as we work together to find solutions for MSAD 54’s issues.”
Verville said she has four children who have graduated from Skowhegan Area High School, and one of her daughters is a substitute teacher in the Madison-area school district. Many parents in the district, Verville said, are unhappy with how the schools are being run.
“(I will) work to do what is best for the children of our community and their success as they will be our next workforce or business owners,” Verville said.
She said she also hopes to make school safety a priority, and focus on retaining staff members, especially given the number of teachers who have left their positions recently. Verville would also like to see politics taken out of the school system so it can “get back to basics.”
Kelso, the eighth candidate for the School Board, did not respond to repeated attempts to reach her for comment and information. She addressed her candidacy, however, on social media.
“It’s time for a change and new ideas,” she wrote on Facebook. “It’s time to get back to basics: reading on grade level and to understand what is being read, basic math to be able to balance a checkbook/maintain a budget, and be able to write and read cursive.”
Kelso also wrote that she believes more resource officers are needed at schools “to protect our children” and “to help stop bullying.”
Along with deciding on candidates for the board, residents Tuesday are to vote on a referendum question about the MSAD 54 budget for 2023-24, which the board has approved at $41.8 million, an increase of 7.5% to current spending.
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