A superintendent in rural Washington County quit after her school board voted last week to eliminate protections for transgender students in the latest case of a district aligning with President Donald Trump to buck state law.
It capped a dramatic episode in the Danforth-based Maine School Administrative District 14 that began with a teacher reportedly resigning last month over the district’s policies governing transgender students. After roughly 100 community members attended a meeting last Monday, the board voted unanimously to overturn them and got a standing ovation.
“We are in progress,” school board chair Felicia Cowger said in an interview, declining to comment further.
The school district’s superintendent, Margaret White, resigned after the policies were passed. She could not be reached for comment on the reasons for her resignation.
The strong reaction from a remote and conservative community tucked along the Canadian border shows how the issue continues to ripple through a state targeted by Trump after his White House exchange with Gov. Janet Mills in February. Several other school districts have overturned transgender protections or are considering doing so.
The Republican president took office earlier this year and changed the government’s interpretation of Title IX, the landmark law barring gender discrimination, to declare that there are only two genders with a goal of “keeping men out of women’s sports.” But the Maine Civil Rights Act has long barred gender identity-based discrimination in public settings.
The Department of Justice sued Maine over transgender athlete policies in April. The federal government subpoenaed the Maine Principals’ Association, which runs high school sports in Maine, for the names of athletes. The organization is now fighting that request in court.
White had previously taken a cautious approach, saying in July that the district would follow Maine law. But things changed after a teacher reportedly resigned last month, citing how the district’s existing transgender policies conflicted with her religious beliefs in a letter published by the conservative Maine Wire. The Bangor Daily News could not reach her for comment.
The resignation helped spark a strong response from local conservatives, in part because few community members were aware of the existing policy according to Weston pastor John Fickett, who helped mobilize area residents.
The board moved unanimously to start the process of banning transgender students from sports and private spaces that align with their gender identities. The board also ordered a review of other policies for transgender protections with the intent of removing them, according to a school official.
MSAD 14’s East Grand School in Danforth is just three miles from the Canadian border. It’s not clear if there are any transgender students in the school district serving about 140 students from Danforth, Weston, Bancroft, Wytopitlock, Brookton, and Reed Plantation.
Just north of the East Grand School’s district, MSAD 70, in Hodgdon, made waves when it became the first one in Maine to switch to a policy that mirrored Trump’s language in April. Schools in Turner, Livermore and Baileyville have also considered similar policy changes. State regulators have said they will not proactively enforce Maine law.
According to meeting minutes, concerns over Title IX were first brought to the attention of MSAD 14’s board in May, when residents suggested the district “follow suit with Hodgdon.” The minutes further explain that the public commenters said they “prefer their children use a separate bathroom from any Transgendered [sic] children.”
Former state Rep. Heidi Sampson, R-Alfred, attended the board meeting in Danforth. Her group, the Maine Education Initiative, provides a sample directive for school boards looking to remove transgender protections from their Title IX policies. The group claimed some credit for the policy change at MSAD 14, as well as in other districts.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.
