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Liz Holton (left) and Anna Trevorrow are vying for the at-large seat on the Portland School Committee. (photos/courtesy candidates)

Voters’ Guide 2008: School Committee At-large

You can agree or disagree with their positions, but you’ve gotta give Liz Holton and Anna Trevorrow credit for doing what no one else in town was willing to do this year: get on the ballot to serve on the Portland School Committee.

Three seats on the school board are up for election this year, but the at-large seat representing all of Portland is the only one that attracted serious candidates. A few people have expressed after-the-fact interest in running for the District 4 and District 5 seats as write-in candidates, but it’s hard to get excited about their “candidacies,” since they clearly weren’t motivated to serve until it became clear no one else would even try.

Although the school system itself seems to be functioning just fine, the school board and administration are a mess. The district is looking for a new superintendent in the wake of a financial mismanagement scandal that sent former super Mary Jo O’Connor and finance director Dick Paulson packing last year. 

Institutional memory is in very short supply. When the new board convenes after the election, no current member will have yet served even one full, three-year term. Board chairman John Coyne, who’s led the group for the past two years, is running for City Council this year, so board leadership is also in flux.

On a positive note, the school district’s made headway getting its finances back in order this year — despite a relatively tiny projected deficit the mainstream media is hyping of late. And the once paralyzing partisanship that plagued the board a few years ago is all but gone, though so are almost all the Greens who made up one side of the fight.

Neither candidate in this race has run for public office before.

Liz Holton, 41, is a married mother with three kids in Portland public schools. She lives on Victoria Street, in East Deering, and works as the office manager at a realty company.

Holton has the equivalent of an associate degree in art from a college in England, where she grew up. She’s been an active citizen-participant in school affairs for several years, including service as president of the Presumpscot Elementary School PTO, work on the facilities task force charged with assessing the district’s infrastructure needs, and current membership on the Ocean Avenue elementary school building committee.

Trevorrow is a 26-year-old customer service representative with Norway Savings Bank. She has a partner of seven years and a dog, but no kids, and lives on Congress Street downtown.

Trevorrow has a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Southern Maine, and has taken classes at a regional financial training center. She was involved in the recent effort to maintain polling places in Portland.       

A few notes on this year’s questions…

• Though some officials dispute the idea, others believe the opening of the new elementary school on Ocean Avenue in a couple years will necessitate the closure of at least one other elementary school in addition to Nathan Clifford.

• After the Deering High School baseball team won the state championship last June, a party was allegedly held where some sort of alcoholic beverage was available for players to consume. Three assistant coaches lost their jobs over the incident, and now face up to a year in the slammer.

• During and previous to O’Connor’s tenure as super, the district had two assistant supers: one for elementary schools and one for secondary (junior high and high) schools. Interim super Jeanne Whynot-Vickers, one of those former assistant supers, has only one assistant these days, but there’s been debate over whether another top administrative position should be added.     

• A couple years ago, there was intense debate on the board over whether high school class rankings and the system of weighting grades based on the type of classes students complete should be changed or abolished. The move to alter the system caused an uproar, leading to further study and, ultimately, a return to the previous system.  

In addition to Nathan Clifford, how many other elementary schools should close?

Liz Holton: Is currently working on the task force evaluating elementary school capacity; said closing another school would fill all the rest, and there “wouldn’t be any room for growth or [additional] programming” at those schools.

Anna Trevorrow: “Zero. I’m opposed to closing more schools.” Noted other roles schools play: as polling places, community gathering spaces, etc.

Does the punishment fit the crime in the case of the Deering High School coaches involved in the victory party where alcohol was allegedly available?

Holton: Yes. “If they are fined or given some jail time, then I think that is appropriate.” 

Trevorrow: Yes. “I believe, in general, it does.”

Would you have supported making birth control available to King Middle School students?

Holton: Yes, but only with parental consent.

Trevorrow: Yes. Would not require parental consent for students to receive birth control.

Do military recruiters have too much access to students?

Holton: No. Added that she signed a form indicating she did not want recruiters to have access to her high-school-age child’s personal information.

Trevorrow: Yes. “We could revisit that and make it harder for military recruiters to [visit schools].”

Are Portland teachers overpaid?

Holton: No. Said Portland teachers’ salaries are in line with those of other teachers in New England; expressed some concern that there was not a competitive bidding process to pick an insurer to provide teachers’ benefits. 

Trevorrow: No. “I believe, in general, teachers are universally underpaid…. I would never say that teachers are overpaid.”

Should the superintendent have two assistant superintendents?

Holton: No. “One person should be able to do that job.”

Trevorrow: Not sure, but is open to further discussion of the question.

Are you open to additional corporate sponsorship to help the district’s finances?  

Holton: Yes, “but I’m sure there are probably some governmental issues” limiting such sponsorship opportunities.

Trevorrow: Yes, but not large, national corporations; smaller, local businesses would be OK.

Do you support weighted grades and class rankings?

Holton: Yes.

Trevorrow: No.

Is the No Child Left Behind law effective in improving education in Portland?

Holton: “I have mixed feelings about that.” Said NCLB is “a good tool to show how we’re doing with sub-groups,” but added, “it forces us to focus too much on bringing underperformers up, so we don’t focus enough on challenging kids in the higher brackets.” Also said there’s “too much testing and red tape around it.”

Trevorrow: “No. Absolutely not. It sets us up with this dynamic that we have to continually produce better and better grades. It’s like taking a corporate perspective and applying it to education.”