Members of the Maine School Administrative District 11 board of directors, from left, Elissa Tracey, Sage Sculli and Linda Caputo vote December 2024 in favor of exploring a school-based health center for Gardiner Area High School. Anna Chadwick/Morning Sentinel file

GARDINER — When she was supposed to be taking an Advanced Placement calculus test, Sage Sculli spent the class period in the superintendent’s office going through her text messages.

Sculli, then 17, was subject to a Freedom of Access Act request that required her to hand over text messages, social media activities, and anything else related to her discussing her role of student representative on the Maine School Administrative District 11 school board after she spoke out in favor of the mental health of transgender students and supported a school-based health center.

Along with elected school board members and some district residents, Sculli has become a target of online attacks and harassment that has prompted board members and residents to seek restraining orders from personal online attacks including at least one death threat.

At the same time, at least one organization that has targeted school board members with flyers and texting campaigns has issued a cease and desist letter to stop a board member from referring to it as a hate group.

Targeting people based on their beliefs, particularly at school board and other local meetings, is becoming more and more common.

Jason Blazakis, a professor and executive director of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, said the way the groups decide to communicate to people who don’t align with their thinking can be presented as a form of stochastic violence, a form of political violence where vague and passive language can be used to stoke people in an “us vs. them” narrative.  

“It’s about controlling a narrative in an effort to win a broader culture war,” Blazakis said. “This fits in with the ‘us vs. them’ narrative that they can bring forward and find an active audience who takes these ideas and runs with them.” 

In the Gardiner area, two issues have drawn wide attention. One is bathrooms for transgender students and the other and current issue is a proposed school-based health center.

The members of the MSAD 11 board of directors who favor the health center see it as a way for students to have accessible and affordable health care. Those who oppose it believe it will provide gender-affirming care and other health care to students without their parents’ knowledge or approval.

In Maine, more than 20 school-based health centers are in operation, offering services like vaccinations, physical examinations to participate in sports and other health care to students and staff; insurance is not required.

The school board members who support the health center say they have been the focus of online attacks, hate email from hundreds of people across the country, death threats and calls for them to resign.

Sculli testified in front of the Judiciary Committee at the Maine State Legislature in March to speak out against the doxxing and harassment of minors and shared her own experience. After the information was handed over to the person who requested it, it was posted on a public account on X, formerly known as Twitter, to thousands of followers.

“The harassment didn’t stop there,” she said. “Another FOAA request sought to publicize my college decision letter. A clear attempt to embarrass and silence me. The idea that such personal information could be made public was horrifying.”

Two school board members, Elissa Tracey of Randolph and Joanne O’Brien of Gardiner, have also been targeted with online harassment. They have each sought two protection from harassment orders. One of the two orders Tracey has sought has been on behalf of her 15-year-old daughter, who became a target of social harassment after she spoke publicly at a school board meeting.

“The fear that something may happen is palpable, and we discuss it daily in our home,” Tracey said in her application.  

Emma Doxsee, a resident in the school district, said at a school board meeting she and her partner have received death threats and the doxxing of their home address by the groups. 

“Now, personal phone numbers and my personal address have been shared in their forums. We are getting death threats. Parents, teachers, children — children who live in the very district you’re supposed to protect,” Doxsee said. 

Two nonprofit groups have been vocal in opposing the health center are Courage is Habit and Parents Rights in Education.

Parent’s Rights in Education, based in Oregon with a chapter in Maine spearheaded by Allen Sarvinas of Topsham, advocates for local control of school districts and “safeguarding eduction against politicization and indoctrination.”  It hosts forums for interested people to find out how they can run for empty spots on school boards.

Sarvinas has attended several MSAD 11 school board meetings and been a vocal opponent of transgender students and the proposed health center. He has also filed several Freedom of Access Act requests on the proposed health center to gain more information about the school based health center and the board’s process of seeking it out.

The group recently hosted a ticketed event that Sarvinas discouraged the media from attending, saying that it’s an event for parents to come together and socialize with like-minded people away from being questioned by the media.

Courage is a Habit, based in Indiana, is run by Alvin Lui, and has targeted school board members with critical flyers and has organized texting campaigns against candidates for school board.

While the Southern Poverty Law Center has called Parents Rights in Education an anti-student inclusion group, Sarvinas said he doesn’t pay any attention.

He said his organization has sent a cease and desist letter to the school district to stop one school board member from publicly referring to it as a hate group.

“We are only there because we had multiple people in the community reach out to us for help. I don’t go anywhere without hearing from a member asking, ‘Can you help us? What are we missing here?’ and we help them understand what to do from there,” he said. 

The Sculli family tried to take legal action against the online harassment of Sage, but were told there is nothing they could do.

Jennifer Sculli, Sage’s mother, and other parents in the Gardiner-area school district, have shown up to school board meetings to discourage the behavior of the board members and the people interfering from the outside.

“These actions demonstrate a betrayal of trust and complete disregard for our schools and community. These are our schools built for our students. They are not platforms for outside political groups with extreme personalities, or self-serving board members serving their own agenda. We stand united and we will not stop fighting,” Jennifer Sculli said at a school board meeting earlier this year.

Understanding that continuing to stand up may be daunting, Blazakis said to remember that the efforts are for the future of children and students. 

“It’s important to keep in mind the big future, be that the future of your community, or your kid’s education, or how you are seen by kids,” he said. “It takes a brave person to do that and fight for what is right and what they believe in. There is a lot to lose with silence. I think it’s important for folks to internalize: what are the benefits of being silent or pressing on? Arguably, where you sit, those stakes might be quite high,” he said.