Belfast voters reelected an incumbent school board member and chose a write-in candidate to represent the city on the RSU 71 school board for the next three years.
Martha Proulx, who was seeking her second full term on the board, received the most votes with 1,706, while declared write-in candidate Madison Cook garnered 1,338 votes. Alva Philbrook, a local drywall company owner, received 646 votes, and Rachel Philbrook, who appeared on the ballet but withdrew from the race last month, had 474.
Proulx, a social worker with experience in child welfare services who trains new foster families and caseworkers, and Alva Philbrook, a local drywall company owner, were on the ballot, along with Rachel Philbrook, but she withdrew from the race last month.
The race was shaped in part by candidate positions on transgender student policies, as others have been across Maine in recent years. Budget concerns, upgrades to aging facilities and the ongoing search for a superintendent after two years of interim leadership are also more directly ahead for the representatives.
The Maine First Project, a right-wing group that encourages participation in local school boards among other priorities, sent a mailer in October urging votes for Alva Philbrook as a candidate who would advocate for keeping transgender girls out of female sports teams, locker rooms and bathrooms.
The district three years ago approved a policy with guidelines for its transgender students allowing them to use the facilities of their choice, among other protections. Philbrook said he had asked the project not to send the fliers and did not intend to push a vote on such policies, but would support a change if it came up.
Cook, who previously served on the architecture faculty at Virginia Tech and served on administrative committees and in academic coordination roles there, mounted her campaign before the mailer, but said she was aware of Philbrook’s beliefs previously and knew “what was at stake” in the election when deciding to run.
Proulx, a social worker with experience in child welfare services who trains new foster families and caseworkers, entered the race before the mailer and said the subject was not a motivator for her. Representatives would need to follow the Maine Human Rights Act regardless of their personal beliefs, she said.