Maine Substitute Teacher Arrested for Alleged Sexual Abuse of 15-Year-Old

A school bus rolls down the street in Gainesville, Fla., after school on Jan. 23, 2023. Nanette Holt/The Epoch Times

Police have arrested a female substitute teacher at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish, Maine, for the alleged sexual abuse of a 15-year-old boy.

Kiera McGlinn, a substitute teacher at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish, Maine, was arrested for sexual abuse of a child. Cumberland County Sheriff's Office

The 42-year-old teacher, Kiera McGlinn, was charged with sexual abuse of a minor and tampering with a witness or victim, according to a written statement from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO).

McGlinn was accused of having a sexual relationship with the boy, said to be a friend of her family members. During the investigation, she contacted him and asked him to lie about it, according to the CCSO report.

McGlinn, of Standish, turned herself in and was released after posting $2,500 on bail, according to the report.

Because she’s more than 10 years older than the boy, it elevates the crime to a Class C felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and $5,000 in fines.

The alleged abuse did not take place on school property, and her role as a teacher didn’t “serve to facilitate the crime,” according to the CCSO report. The victim was a family friend, according to the report.

No other victims have been identified. And the sheriff’s office praised the school district and “each juvenile and their parents for their courage to report this incident and speak with investigators.”

Sexualized at School

But school libraries that offer overtly sexual materials to children may pave the way to sexual abuse, said Julie Anderson, a school board member in the state’s School Administrative District No. 6.

And many Maine school libraries are full of such books, parents have told The Epoch Times.

Anderson’s school board supervises Bonny Eagle High School and other local schools.

“I feel like providing these types of hyper-sexualized books to minors breaks their defenses down,” Anderson told The Epoch Times.

“They have access to obscene, hypersexualized, graphic books in the library, learning about topics that parents should be required to give consent to if their children are going to read them.”

Groups including the American Library Association, the Human Rights Campaign, and the American Civil Liberties Union have fought against community members’ demands to remove the books from school libraries.

Advocates of books on LGBT topics and other sexual issues say children must feel represented to learn and say efforts to restrict access to such materials are “book bans.”

In protest of a recent push to remove overtly sexual books from public school classrooms and school libraries, a child holds a sign that reads "Ban Guns Not Books" at the Florida Capitol in Tallahassee on March 13, 2023. Dan M. Berger/The Epoch Times

Children have experienced sexual abuse will feel represented when they see stories of child sexual abuse, some have said. And having LGBT books help created a “safe space” for children who identify as LGBT.

The efforts arguing to keep the books in school libraries have been successful.

In the fall, the school board in School Administrative District No. 6 voted 10-1 against removing “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley, from a middle-school library. Anderson was the only school board member voting for removal, she said.

The book includes sex advice, illustrations of couples having sex, and an introduction to homosexuality and transgenderism.

In Anderson’s eyes, that’s dangerous, and could potentially “groom” children.

Grooming is a process sexual abusers use to manipulate children into sex, often taking small steps to desensitize children to sexual behavior, according to the sexual abuse prevention group the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN).

Part of grooming can include introducing children to sexual topics, the group says.

With highly sexual books and curriculum available at Bonny Eagle High School and Bonny Eagle Middle School, students may already feel comfortable discussing sexually explicit subjects with teachers, Anderson said.

Predators might use this material to bring up sex to kids, she noted.

“I think it just all plays a part,” she said.

In Anderson’s district, the middle-school library includes the book, “Like a Love Story,” by Abdi Nazemian. The book includes graphic descriptions of homosexual sex, according to BookLooks, a watchdog website for sexually explicit texts.

Julie Anderson, a school board member for Maine School Administrative District No. 6. Courtesy of Julie Anderson

It also includes “Push,” by Sapphire; “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe; “The Freedom Writers Diary,” by the Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell; “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” by Gregory Maguire; and “Juliet Takes a Breath,” by Gabby Rivera.

Topics of the books include radical gender ideology, graphic descriptions of child sex abuse by a father, self-harm, teen drug use, teen sex abuse, and orgies.

In all, there are nearly 100 sexually explicit high school books and more than 50 sexually explicit middle school books, Anderson said.

Parental Anger

Incensed parents brought the books to the school board’s attention, Anderson said.

“Parents stood up and read excerpts from some horrible, sexually graphic, violent books in our libraries,” Anderson said.

Across Maine, many libraries have sexually graphic books, and parents and students have complained to school boards.

Some parents also have complained about the Maine Integrated Youth Survey (MIYS), which asks students sexual questions. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with the Maine Department of Education, administers the survey to all children from 5th grade to 12th grade.

“Which of the following best describes you?” one question asks students in 7th and 8th grades.

Answer choices include “Heterosexual [straight],” “Gay or Lesbian,” “Bisexual,” “I describe my sexual identity in some other way,” “I am not sure about my sexual identity,” and “I do not know what this question is asking.”

Another question asks, “Some people describe themselves as transgender when their sex at birth does not match the way they think or feel about their gender. Are you transgender?”

The survey asks if the children have had sexual intercourse, and, if so, at what age. One of the answer options is “8 years old or younger.”

The survey also asks if the children used a condom the last time they had sex.

The high school-level survey asks students aged 12–18 if their last sexual partner was up to “5 or more years younger” or “5 or more years older.”

It also asks whether they were having sex with “females,” “males,” “females and males,” or if they have “never had sexual contact.”

Requests for Transparency

An LGBT book display in Hermon High School in Hermon, Maine, in November 2021. Shawn McBreairty, the Maine First Project and Maine Source Of Truth

Although parents have a right under federal law to read their children’s instructional materials, schools have made it extremely difficult to access this material, Anderson said.

“Parents request instructional materials about what’s being taught to the students in health class, and they’re not given access to it,” she said.

Schools have also been unwilling to provide students with balanced perspectives on transgenderism, Anderson added.

Her district’s middle and high schools have many books promoting transgenderism as positive, but they lack books with opposing viewpoints, she said.

That goes against Maine’s education administrative guidelines, which say school libraries must show “the presentation of different points of view.”

So Anderson tried to provide the high school library with copies of “Irreversible Damage,” by Abigail Shrier, a nonfiction book presenting research about harm caused by transgenderism. The library rejected them, she said.

School’s Response

There have been four cases of sexual assault on minors in the past seven years in schools in the district, Anderson noted.

She said she believes school authorities promptly reported the sexual assault to the school board,

Bonny Eagle High School quickly stopped employing McGlinn, school superintendent Clay Gleason told The Epoch Times.

“We are cooperating with that [CCSO] investigation and we are also conducting our own internal inquiry,” Gleason said. He said he wasn’t free to speak much about the case due to privacy concerns.

The school also is investigating allegations that McGlinn harassed some students, Gleason said.

“When an investigation uncovers inappropriate or illegal actions or violations of school rules or policies, we address the conduct in a manner that complies with applicable law and policies, and that is appropriate for the circumstances,” he said.