Lately, I keep reliving the events of Feb. 25, 2019, in our town. That evening, I sat in a folding chair in the Kennebunk Elementary School gym with a hundred fellow residents and listened in shock and disbelief as the RSU 21 School Board finally addressed the racial harassment and retaliation against Black KHS social studies teacher Rosa Slack, which had finally come to light through an article in the Portland Press Herald, notifying the public of the existence of her whistle blower suit and the experiences that led her to resort to legal action.
I remember listening to members of the RSU 21 School Board, who expressed frustration and dismay that Ms. Slack’s suit and her grounds for filing this suit had not been shared with them by the superintendent or the board chair. I listened to their tearful apologies for the mistreatment that she and her family suffered and those of other community members, who vowed that “these are not our values. Our community is better than this.” And I have been one of the many, many members of our community who have worked since that night to make sure that Kennebunk is a truly inclusive place that welcomes everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual preference, disability, or income level. I have taken action: participated in community conversations regarding inclusivity, joined One Town One Community, and currently lead a group of local citizen historians seeking to discover the history of people of color in our community, which has been unacknowledged for far too long.
The current recall of Tim Stentiford and Art LeBlanc is a call back to the events of that night. As a former teacher, I believe in learning from your mistakes. As a student of history, I believe in studying the past to inform my behavior in the present. RSU 21’s current school board has taken the lessons of that night to heart. The board, in collaboration with professionals and numerous community volunteers, has worked to create a diversity, equity, and inclusion plan and is beginning to implement that plan in our schools. It is sad, but not surprising, that a vocal minority in our town is seeking to disrupt this effort. They’ve taken aim at three members of the school board, most closely identified in their minds with the success of this DEI initiative. Their ultimate publicly-stated goal is to remove Dr. Terri Cooper, the only Black superintendent in Maine, a year and a half into her leadership tenure, because they have prejudged her as “unfit to lead.”
Town Manager Mike Pardue and select board chair Blake Baldwin have engaged in legal decision-making without the knowledge or participation of other members of this board and without the benefit of any written legal opinion supporting the legality of various key stages of the recall process. They sought to schedule meetings with some petition challengers without the knowledge or involvement of the entire select board. This past Tuesday, the actions of Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Pardue backed the members of this board into a corner, forcing them to authorize the legal expense of answering a complaint in a declaratory judgment and injunction action filed by the school board – without the benefit of a written legal opinion advising the board of the basis of their defense. Such a legal opinion could have easily been obtained if Mr. Pardue had shared the 10-page legal opinion by the school board’s attorney regarding the grounds for this lawsuit when he received it, 36 days ago, on Dec. 22, 2021.
The targets of the current recall effort, every member of the school board, and members of the community who support them, believe it’s time for this board to apply the lessons learned from the Rosa Slack incident, to redeem this sordid history. It is time to support Dr. Cooper, who has repeatedly demonstrated tremendous leadership through her commitment to supporting the learning of all our students during this uncharted, challenging pandemic. It is time to support all members of our school board, regardless of their race or sexual preference, who volunteer to work extremely hard to ensure the welfare of our local students. And it’s also time for some members of this board to step forward and enforce the recall process laid out in our town charter in a fair, even-handed manner.
You are charged, under the charter, with supervising our town manager Mr. Pardue, who has displayed the exact opposite of transparency in his actions regarding the recall. He has scrupulously left the entire process of seeking and obtaining legal advice undocumented. If you permit the certification of the signatures on the Tim Stentiford recall petition and charter to ensure the equitable treatment of the recall target, it will prove extremely costly to our community. This town will open itself up to a costly Rule 80B proceeding for the inequitable manner in which it’s administered the recall process – one it likely won’t win. It will set a costly precedent for future elected officials, including select board members like yourselves – who can expect the implementation of this process in the future without the benefit of a truthful affidavit setting out the grounds for recall, consistent implementation of time deadlines in a manner that treats recall supporters and recall supporters similarly, the right to have all legal challenges addressed, including via written opinions from the town attorney containing legal support, and the right to a public hearing when requested by the recall target. Finally, the biggest cost will be the loss of public confidence in the integrity of our local legislative body and its commitment to the principles of democratic government.
Make no mistake, the decision you are making now will have a direct impact on student learning, already hampered by the twists and turns of a pandemic over which we have limited control. It will certainly impact the sense of safety experienced by students who, like Mr. Stentiford and Dr. Cooper, ‘a Maine Human Rights Act ‘protected class.’” It will impact the behavior of student bullies, who believe those in authority will turn a blind eye toward their behavior. It will impact every member of the younger generation of our town, for whom you are providing a real-time civics lesson in how our government works. I believe that you, like the majority of our community, don’t embrace the values of bullying, harassment, racism, homophobia, or any other show of intolerance for difference. I believe you care about the welfare of our community, especially that of our kids. I believe you will have the courage to put a pause on the recall process until the procedural errors detailed in the legal challenges before the town clerk have been addressed, via a written opinion certifying to their adherence to the recall tenets of the charter. Finally, I also believe that in future, you will exercise more careful oversight over our town manager and insist on greater transparency from our board chair.
Claudia Sayre is a Kennebunk resident, former attorney for Sidley & Austin in New York (1988-97), a teacher in Newark, New Jersey, substitute teacher at RSU 21, Outreach chair of St. James Episcopal Church in Montclair, New Jersey, and currently programming chair of the Democrats of the Kennebunks and Arundel. She can be reached at claudsayre@gmail.com.
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