Half of RSU 63’s school board, which oversees students in Holden, Eddington and Clifton, will be filled with appointed members after four members resigned on Thursday.
Under state law and town charters, the select boards and councils for Holden, Eddington and Clifton can appoint new members who will serve until the next municipal election.
There is no date by which the new members must be appointed.
The four resignations coming on one day left the school board one member short of the quorum needed to vote, meaning it cannot conduct any business until at least one vacancy is filled. The resignations of Linda Graban of Clifton, Heather Grass of Eddington, and Heather Lander and Cherie Faulkner, both of Holden, stemmed from contention around the eight-member board not having weighted votes despite the four former members believing it did.
The next school board meeting is scheduled for Jan. 26. The three communities have board and council meetings before the school board’s next meeting where new members could be appointed, but agendas aren’t set yet.
There are no plans for any special meetings before then, School Board Chair Scott Walton said.
“Even if [someone was appointed] tomorrow, we want this to be a fair and transparent process, and so we’re going to make sure the towns have the ability to go through that process to appoint someone,” Walton said.
The matter of weighted votes had not come up before this year, Walton said. The issue made board interactions more contentious.
When the three towns formed an MSAD in 2004, the eight board members had equal-weighted votes, according to the school’s certificate. Except two times this year, this voting system has been used in the past 21 years.
Those two instances were based on a certificate from 2009 when the former MSAD restructured into a RSU. The certificate weighted each community’s vote differently, meaning that a 4-4 vote would not always be a tie.
The restructuring was for the school district, not of the school board or voting. The votes were not supposed to change, Superintendent Sheila Caldwell said.
“There was a slight bit of confusion, but according to the Department of Education, we’ve never asked for any kind of restructuring of the school board,” Caldwell said.
The RSU’s lawyers at Drummond Woodsum initially believed the district should follow the 2009 certificate, but later clarification from the Maine Department of Education confirmed the 2009 certification was filed in error, Caldwell said.
With the weighted votes, the four members who resigned would have been able to win a 4-4 vote. There were two tied votes this year, Walton said, one of which was to remove Cherie Faulkner from the budget and finance committee.
That vote would not have passed with weighted votes.
Following the resignations, Walton and Caldwell said they were looking forward to working with the new members and moving past the resignations and allegations included in them.
Walton said he respects the former members’ opinions on the RSU’s lack of leadership but disagrees with it.
“It’s unfortunate that they resigned and we wish them the best. We’re ready to continue to do the work of the district, turn the page and move forward and work with whoever these towns decide to put in their place until the next election cycle,” he said.
The allegations the former members included in their resignations were “sharp language” that Caldwell said she doesn’t agree with. She said she wants to highlight what good the district is doing rather than the resignations.
“I just would like us to be a district that can focus on the students, focus on teaching and learning, put the spotlight on the teachers who are doing an amazing job, and just work with the board in the ways that typically boards support districts where they come to events, they’re shown and they’re there for the positive things,” Caldwell said.
