Two RSU 71 school board members said they were subjected to “bullying tactics” and “inappropriate” behavior, and pressured by an administrator to change their position against closing the Kermit Nickerson elementary school in Swanville.
Laura Baker and Madison Cook were the only two board members to vote against closing the school earlier this month. But because the vote was weighted by the population of the town the members come from, their opposition was enough to sink the measure.
Last week, both say they were called into the office of Ashley Reynolds, the principal of the Captain Albert Stevens School, which is where the Nickerson school students would have been transferred if the vote to close their school had passed.
“I was called into a principal’s office and told that if I do not change my vote, then student programs will be cut, particularly the ones that the students and communities value,” Baker said at a school board meeting on Monday.
“I want to name that as a bullying tactic,” she said.
Reynolds did not respond to requests for comment. Jessica Giorgetti, the district’s assistant superintendent, disputed the board members’ account. Reynolds invited Cook and Baker to tour the school, she said, reading from an email Reynolds forwarded to her.
Giorgetti said the district’s administrative team, which includes principals, supports closing the Nickerson school to cut costs because it means they will have to make fewer budget cuts to staffing and services.
“It was reported to me that they had a wonderful conversation,” Giorgetti said. She also pushed back against Baker’s use of the term “bullying” saying that bullying is continual and occurs over repeated situations.
“It’s not one time your perception of how a meeting went that made you feel a certain way,” she said.
Cook also said she was pressured to change her position on closing the Nickerson school.
“I felt it was really inappropriate and out of line with how a school district should function,” she said.
Cook also said that she was told that the administration plans to close the Gladys Weymouth School, in Morrill, and Searsmont’s Ames School “in the near future” and said that discussion of these issues should be coming from the board’s Long Range Planning Committee and discussed at board meetings which are open to the public.
In the face of perceived pressure, the board passed a motion, introduced by Baker, to indefinitely table the Nickerson closure until there have been “real community conversations and visioning opportunities” that would involve the board as well as more data collected about the need for the school.
Cory Seekins, the only board member from Swanville, voted against that motion. He also voted earlier this month in favor of closing the school.
In late January, the district’s administration proposed closing the Nickerson School at the end of the school year, arguing that it could save the district more than $450,000 per year. Since then, some Swanville residents and school board members have raised concerns that the decision would be made too quickly and without enough input from the community.
