Statute on school nepotism needs to be changed

The heart of the recent concern about Dan Tremble’s resignation from his duly elected seat on the Bangor School Committee is a seriously flawed state statute that has been allowed to stand in spite of repeated attempts to have it changed or eliminated.

When my wife won a contested seat on my town’s elementary school committee, the superintendent asked her not to take her seat because I worked as an ed tech at a high school in an adjoining school district. The complication was that I was paid by a neighboring town to provide services to that town’s students at the out-of-district high school. The neighboring town and my town are in the same school district. The reason given for enforcing the state statute in my case was that there was a connection between my employer (the neighboring town’s superintendent) and the fact that the superintendent’s job would be evaluated by representatives from area school committees which could possibly include my wife.

I promptly resigned my job to allow my wife to take her school committee seat. The result of the statute was to either penalize the students in one school or the other.

Then I went to Augusta at my own time and expense to argue before the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs the reasons why the law should be changed or eliminated. The Maine School Management Association (MSMA), an umbrella organization for the Maine School Boards Association and the Maine School Superintendents Association, argued against my position.

The first problem with the existing state statute is that it is ineffective at preventing nepotism, the stated reason for its existence. Nepotism is alive and well throughout our educational system because, in part, the state statute only restricts spouses of school board members. It does not prevent school administrators (principals, superintendents) from hiring their spouses. The MSMA’s decision to argue against changing the existing statute shows that their primary allegiance is not with their school board arm but with their school superintendent arm.

Nepotism is not confined to spouses, so why is the statute? Most people would recognize a closer relationship between two people living together than between a person and his or her estranged spouse from whom he or she is separated. What about the closeness of the relationship of parent-child or sibling-sibling? What about the relationship between business partners? The statute is silent on all of these.

Enforcement of the existing statute is problematic: How can a superintendent prove whether or not an employee is married or divorced? Collecting this information is not allowed in the hiring process because it is an invasion of privacy that could be the cause of unfair discrimination.

Unfortunately, the statute invites selective enforcement. While I was arguing my case I learned of similar problems that were being ignored in other communities. I was well aware that my superintendent might have preferred the opposing candidate to win the election. Was this the reason the statute was cited in my case but not others?

Finally, nepotism can be controlled effectively by conflict of interest policies at the local level and does not need statutory authority that has been shown to be arbitrary, ineffective and a source of possible abuse.

In the light of the recent public attention in Bangor to this statute, let us demand that it be changed or eliminated. And let us hope that the MSMA will support our efforts this time.

Ralph Chapman is a resident of Brooksville. He may be contacted at rchapman@downeast.net.