On June 14 we vote for our schools: the Budget and the Board. Our schools provide a sound knowledge base and useful skills and habits: good learning. All students need to know about and be prepared for all the opportunities open to high school graduates, to young adults: higher education, vocational training, employment, citizenship.

MSAD 44 must recruit and retain good teachers, reward them, and encourage them to keep learning. It must offer programs that address the learning needs of all its students. It must maintain the physical fabric within which all this takes place. The Budget provides the means to make this happen.

The School Board makes sure that this happens: watching, questioning, and deciding when necessary. That’s what Board members do. It’s what I’ll do if elected. I’ve been in the education business for half a century. In recent years I’ve taught at White Mountains Community College and the University of Maine, Augusta Centers at South Paris and Rumford, and substituted at Telstar. I know something about what students want and need.