Maine School Administrative District 75 school board member Jane Scease speaks earlier this year about Housing Resources for Youth, a new host home program getting off the ground serving homeless high school students in Brunswick, Bath and Topsham. (Darcie Moore / The Times Record)
TOPSHAM — Jane Scease, a member of the Maine School Administrative District 75 school board, has announced she will step down at the end of September.
According to the resignation letter she submitted to Topsham officials last month, her resignation is effective Sept. 30.
“I plan to move out of the district during the fall, and want to allow time for a replacement to be elected to serve out the remainder of my term,” she wrote.
Scease’s third term doesn’t expire until November 2020 and will be filled through a special election this November.
Scease has been working on teen homelessness with the district and beyond. She told The Times Record she is moving to Brunswick and will continue that work. Most recently she’s helped lead Housing Resources for Youth, a new host home program getting off the ground serving homeless high school students in Brunswick, Bath and Topsham.
Topsham Selectmen on Aug. 1 appointed Don Koslosky to fill the seat until the November election.
Koslosky was one of the candidates who applied for an opening on the school board after Matthew Drewette-Card resigned from the school board as a Topsham representative on July 1. Drewette-Card’s term expires in November, so Topsham selectmen appointed Patrick Coen to fill the seat until November.
Drewette-Card was serving a second term on the board. His resignation followed a shakeup in membership and leadership on the 14-member board. However, in an April letter to school district officials, Drewette-Card said that the recent tumult was not a factor.
“I am resigning from the board for personal, family and professional reasons,” the letter states. “My resignation is not related to any of the tumultuous or challenging events that have affected the school board over the months. I have been pondering this action since last fall, and have decided that I cannot continue to give the board, district, students and educators the time, focus, attention, and commitment they deserve due to my many personal, family, and professional commitments and obligations.”
Topsham residents hold six of the 14 seats on the school board. The resignations of Scease and Drewitte-Card are not the first this year.
Harpswell representatives and longtime board members Joanne Rogers and David Johnson resigned on Feb. 8, saying they no longer had “the trust of the board” and shouldn’t continue to serve. Those seats expired in 2020 and were temporarily filled by Molly Perry and Frank Wright until the next election.
On Feb. 28, the school board ousted its chairwoman Kim Totten of Bowdoin, who had served on the school board 14 years. The board then elected Tyler Washburn, also of Bowdoin, as its new chair temporarily. Linda Hall of Harpswell was recently elected is the chair as part of the board’s annual leadership rotation.
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