The Deer Isle-Stonington school board voted unanimously Wednesday to suspend its superintendent until further notice.
The move is the latest turmoil in School Union 76 surrounding Superintendent Dan Ross, who was hired to lead the five-town school district in the spring of 2022. Other towns in the district include Brooklin and Sedgwick.
Deer Isle and Stonington comprise only part of School Union 76. It was unclear Friday morning if the elected school board members in Brooklin and Sedgwick might be considering similar votes for Ross.
School Union 76 also has been beset in recent months with turnover among top administrators, school staff voting that they have a no-confidence in Ross earlier this week and even a call to police in August when Ross contacted the sheriff’s department to report that board member Darrell Williams was disrupting a staff meeting, according to the Island Ad-Vantages weekly newspaper.
Deer Isle and Stonington, which together comprise Consolidated School District 13 as part of School Union 76, held an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening via Zoom that nearly 90 people tuned into. The meeting lasted only a few minutes, with no discussion about why the board was considering suspending him.
The board voted 5-0 “to direct the Superintendent to refrain from conducting any business on behalf of CSD 13 until further notice” and then quickly adjourned.
Genevieve McDonald, co-chair of the CSD board, declined after the vote to comment on why the board suspended Ross.
The emergency meeting was the second one the board had held in a week, with another one preceding it on Nov. 21. At that meeting, the board rescinded a letter of intent to hire Mechanical Services to oversee planned upgrades at the island high school, which it has just agreed to sign on Nov. 14. The board rescinded that vote after concerns arose about how Ross had handled the process of finding possible bidders on the project, according to Island Ad-Vantages.
Ross did not immediately respond to a voicemail message left Friday morning at the school union office.
Mike Sealander, chairperson of the Brooklin School Board, said its next meeting for that town is scheduled for Dec. 10, and that the agenda for that meeting has not yet been set. He said he was aware that the Deer Isle-Stonington had been planning to hold a vote about Ross status, but he declined further comment.
Allen Cole, chairperson of the Sedgwick school board, said Friday that the board is having a regularly scheduled meeting Monday. He said the meeting agenda does not include any expected votes about Ross, but that the board could add items to the agenda at the start of the meeting.
Because personnel items are considered confidential under Maine law, Cole declined to comment about Ross’ job performance.
“The board obviously is aware of the situation,” Cole said, referring to the Deer Isle-Stonington vote on Wednesday.
Ross was serving as school superintendent for the town of Cherryfield in Washington County when he was hired to run School Union 76, according to the Ellsworth American. His tenure in Deer Isle, where his office and the district’s high school both are located, began in July 2022.
Before working in Cherryfield, Ross worked three years as a school principal at Woodland Junior Senior High School in Baileyville, for one year as principal at Penquis Valley High School in Milo, and held a dual role as assistant principal and athletic director at both Katahdin Middle and High School in Stacyville and at Southern Aroostook Middle and High School in Dyer Brook, according to media reports. He held the dual posts in Stacyville and Dyer Brook for 10 months, according to his LinkedIn page.