A Maine school board member took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper to announce her resignation over her district’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies, which she described as eroding parental rights.
“I cannot in good conscience support the extreme policies that have been implemented,” Jameson Davis wrote in a resignation letter that made up the ad. “The pervasive DEI agenda and the erosion of parental rights serve only to insert government where it does not belong.”
Ms. Davis has so far declined to comment further about her July 31 ad in the Kennebunk Post.
According to the newspaper, which is owned by the Portland Press Herald, an ad that size costs around $1,100.
She left her seat in RSU 21, a school district made up of Arundel, Kennebunk, and the elite Kennebunkport, home to the Bush family’s luxe oceanfront Walker’s Point compound, where Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush often held press conferences and national events during their time in office.
The Kennebunk High School, which is part of the district, holds the distinction of being the first school in the state to fly a gay pride flag. A ceremony was held to mark the 2017 event.
The flag was later taken down at the request of a transgender student who was not comfortable with the media attention, according to local news stories.
Mrs. Davis did not specify what DEI policies or initiatives prompted her to resign with such fanfare.
‘Bills We Are Watching’
The board’s meeting agenda always concludes with a “bills we are watching” list and includes Republican-led parental notification bills, such as a proposed constitutional member to establish a parental bill of rights and a bill entitled “Act to Prohibit Health Services Without Parental Consent.”A review of the school’s Transgender and Gender Expansive Students Administrative Procedure reveals that it gives school staff the ultimate right to use their own discretion when it comes to notifying parents about gender-related issues at school.
“As I’ve familiarized myself with the current policies and procedures of the district, it has become clear that the priorities of RSU 21 do not align with our family,” Ms. Davis wrote. “The district is more concerned with (diversity, equity, and inclusion) than with traditional education.”
School board member Loretta McDonell, chairwoman of the district’s DEI Committee, did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times. The Ad Hoc committee has 50 members.
In a statement to The Epoch Times about Ms. Davis’s resignation, RSU 21 School Board Chairman Erin Nadeau said that the district’s priorities are only to provide “a safe environment for all students as well as staff.”
“We stand for inclusion and fostering a healthy learning environment for our students, and a safe working environment for all of our employees,” said Ms. Nadeau, “Staff and students deserve a learning and working environment that is safe, inclusive, supportive, and fair.”
In her resignation letter, Ms. Davis vowed that she and her husband would not be sending their children to the school district and would instead be seeking alternative resources.
Her ad, which ran amidst announcements of native plant swaps and climate change art exhibits, didn’t just draw a local debate. Word of it has spread nationally and stirred up an already cantankerous debate over the promotion of a DEI curriculum in America’s public schools.
National groups like Freedom Center On Campus joined the debate, as did Twitter and Facebook in other states.
Local reaction to the ad has been mixed.
Kennebunkport resident Christine Savage wrote that “our government-run education system has been hijacked by extremists, who push radical theories about race, gender, and sexuality while ignoring parents’ rights ... Children are being led to believe society groups them as either victims or oppressors, which has harmful effects on a child’s sense of self-worth.”
Leslie Trentalange of Kennebunk had a different reaction.
“Disdainful? Back-handed? Discourteous? Just plain obvious? This is some of what came to mind after reading Jameson Davis’s expensive resignation ad,“ she wrote. With terms and wording thrown around as if extracted straight from the extremist group Moms For Liberty playbook, this ad serves not so much as a resignation, but ultimately a disservice to the voters of Kennebunkport.”
In her letter, Ms. Davis said “she was constantly berated by other school board members for her views” and that she has witnessed others in the community having to endure similar harassment “for not agreeing with the school’s liberal policymaking.”
Lawmakers Weigh In
Even local lawmakers weighed in.“It’s really hard to stand up to the agenda of using schools to promote radical agendas,” Maine State Rep. Katrina Smith, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.
“People like Jameson Davis are thankfully paving the way for others, including teachers, to take a stand of using schools to indoctrinate children.”
Ms. Smith has been at the often lonely forefront of the battle against woke ideology in Maine schools. She has introduced a variety of legislation, including measures that would mandate parental notification on DEI-related issues that have not yet been able to make it past the heavily Democrat-dominated legislature.
She recently introduced LD1589, a bill that called for “Directing the Department of Education to Adopt Rules Prohibiting Teachers in Public Schools from Engaging in Political, Ideological and Religious Advocacy in the Classroom.”
Less than two months later, the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs voted it down 22–11, with two members abstaining.
In the meantime, Maine lawmakers have embraced one of the most extreme late-term abortion laws as well as a proposal to turn the rural state into a sanctuary state for out-of-state adults who bring kids to Maine to transgender. The bill would immunize those adults from any law enforcement actions and even court rulings.
Ms. Smith does not believe that the woke ideology being promoted by state lawmakers reflects the beliefs of the average Mainer. The problem is Maine “is a cheap date” for a national campaign to embed woke policies, she said. For a million dollars, lobbyists probably win every district here.”
Starting from the ground up, Ms. Smith said she would like to see Maine adopt a law that requires school board candidates to declare their party affiliation, similar to the bill recently passed in Florida that requires candidates to run under party labels.
In her letter, Ms. Davis seemed to be suggesting something similar.
“I will be working to better understand school choice and how we can implement that essential right in our district and across the state,” she said. “The move would check the powers in our education systems that have amassed under the guise of doing ‘what’s best for the students.’”
