About 70 West Gardiner residents attended a candidate forum Thursday at the fire station. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

WEST GARDINER — When Cole Hickey attended the forum for school board candidates Thursday, he came with the results of a survey of 50 classmates at Gardiner Area High School.

Hickey joined about 70 of his neighbors who were on hand to hear from Matthew Lillibridge, who serves on the Maine School Administrative District 11 School Board and is running for reelection, and from challenger Joe Boyd. Kate Merrill, who is also on the ballot, dropped out of the race at the start of the forum to avoid the possibility of a third candidate splitting the vote.

MSAD 11 includes West Gardiner, Gardiner, Pittston and Randolph. West Gardiner has three seats on the board, currently held by Lillibridge, Sean Focht and Molly Rogers.

Joe Boyd, a candidate for the Gardiner-area school board, responds to a question during the school board candidate forum Thursday. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

Boyd, a South Carolina native, said he was recruited to run for the school board by a Maine organization based in Brewer to put more conservative voices on “liberal” school boards. He said he forgot the name of the group. The organization contacted him after he unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Dan Shagoury, D-Hallowell, in November.

Lillibridge has served on the school board since the 2018-19 school year and has a son in MSAD 11 schools.

The MSAD 11 board is working on several issues of interest in the race, including a proposed school-based health center that would give students, teachers and staff access to on-site health care at the high school. Several board members oppose it because they say it could provide gender-affirming care to transgender teens.

Lillibridge said that as a parent, he supports the health center and hopes it will help lower the chronic absenteeism rate in the school district by having free doctor visits on-site.

“This is a good thing. It’s not forcing anyone to use it. The school-based health center is going to operate like any doctor’s office. If you don’t want your kid going to it, then tell them not to go. MaineCare is in crisis right now, and it’s a way for people who can’t get access to medical care to do so,” he said.

Boyd said he was unfamiliar with the proposal. He said he’s running on a strong anti-LGBTQ platform spelled out in a flyer he has sent out listing his key issues, and said he wants prayer in schools.

Hickey, 17 and a high school junior in the district, said he polled 50 of his classmates at Gardiner Area High School on what school issues are their biggest concerns. He said students say there are more pressing issues to worry about. He made a graph of his work and held it up as he spoke.

Cole Hickey, 17, a junior at Gardiner Area High School, shows the results of a survey he said asked GAHS students their biggest concerns at school. He presented the results to the West Gardiner candidates running for MSAD 11 School Board during a forum Thursday night. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

“I asked the students about what they think the priorities of the school board candidates should be. Joe, you promise (to campaign) against LGBTQ+ propaganda, but that is ludicrous. I asked them to give me two issues of concern and this chart shows that. LGBTQ+ didn’t crack the top five. No one thinks that’s an issue,” Hickey said.

Hickey’s survey results showed that 19.5% believe drugs are the biggest issue at the high school, tied with vandalism of the bathrooms, with school infrastructure at 11% and the quality of education at 9%. Several other issues did not make any of the main categories of the graph, but Hickey said no student mentioned LGBTQ+ issues.

Hickey was one of three MSAD 11 students to ask questions at the forum, along with several members of the public.

The other two students — an elementary-age student and a recent graduate — questioned Boyd’s belief of putting religion in the classroom.

“You mentioned you want God to be in schools. It would seem unfair for the students who are part of other religions to do other Christian things,” Gabriel Brents, 18, a recent graduate said.

“You don’t remember Billy Graham,” Boyd said, “but he was big on the Bible and one of the things that he mentioned is that America turned its back on God. That, to me, is personally one of the reasons why we have so many problems in the education system … that’s when Satan walked into the school and took control of the classroom. If you really do your research on the education system in the state, a lot of these schools are not safe.”

Matthew Lillibridge answers a question Thursday during the school board candidate forum. He currently serves on the Gardiner-area school board and is running for another term. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel

Lillibridge disagreed with Boyd and said students feel safe in MSAD 11 and religion should not be in the classroom.

The candidates were also asked about their understanding of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, and about what they plan to do to improve test scores in the district.

Boyd was unsure if Title IX is a state or federal law and thinks that teachers should go back to basics teaching math, writing and reading without technology.

Lillibridge understood Title IX as a federal law that provides equal opportunity, including in sports. He said distractions from cell phones are a big reason students aren’t doing as well on test scores as they could be. He said the district is already working toward a solution with and established cell phone committee.

“It’s true the numbers are down, I don’t know if it was before COVID 19, but one of the big problems is the phones. We have a committee to explore putting cellphones in envelopes or something, and we have a great curriculum coordinator, Angela (Hardy) who has already worked to change the math curriculum, but the thing is, everything takes some time to see results,” Lillibridge said.

West Gardiner’s town election is Saturday, April 12, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the town’s fire station at 322 Spears Corner Road.