Election 2007 News
Three vie for two seats on the York School Committee
By Melissa Wood
YORK - In the race for School Committee, incumbent member Mary Jane Merrill, Laurie Coffenberry and Julie Eneman are vying for two three-year terms on the board.
One of those terms is currently held by Merrill and the other becomes available effective the May 19 election as Chairwoman Patty Hymanson has decided not to seek another term.
No matter what their individual stances are on the issue, all three candidates for the School Committee agree that dealing with the state's impending school consolidation plan will be at the forefront of the committee's concerns.
Laurie Coffenberry
Laurie Coffenberry
Laurie Coffenberry first got the idea to run for the School Committee while watching her daughter play indoor field hockey when Mary Marshall, wife of Board of Selectmen Chairman David Marshall, said she should go for the open school position left by Hymanson.
Between working in the district as a library assistant at Coastal Ridge Elementary School for more than seven years and having two daughters going through the York Schools, Coffenberry said she's gained significant knowledge of the inner workings of the York School Department. She said those experiences, and her background in teaching physical education, have made education a big part of her life.
"I feel I'm pretty well qualified for the position," said Coffenberry. "Being involved in the welfare of children and their education has always been an easy choice for me to make."
Coffenberry said the state's school consolidation proposal scares her to death.
"I can imagine large classes with a much higher student-to-teacher ratio, cuts to important programs as well as the loss of staff, total loss of the ‘small town' school feeling we now enjoy," she said. "Some students may become ‘lost' within a larger school system."
She said she can't see how it's going to be able to come together in the short timeframe proposed in the current draft of the plan.
"It's mind-boggling how they're actually going to do this," she said. "I really think it's going to hurt the kids."
Coffenberry also said that in light of studies proving that having a well-rounded arts program helps in other facets of a child's education, building a new space for performing arts is a must for York High School.
"I would love to see the original arts addition at the high school come to fruition in a way the staff, students, parents and taxpayers would be satisfied with the end result," she said.
She also said it is no secret that York has a problem with drugs and alcohol in the schools. She proposes starting drug education at a younger age and getting parents more involved as the family is the strongest presence in students' lives.
"Through a cooperative effort between parents, children, teachers and our community, we could create an environment that would reverse the direction that this problem is going here in York," said Coffenberry.
Julie Eneman
Julie Eneman
With four children in the York Schools, Julie Eneman said running for the School Committee is an opportunity for her to step up and get involved on another level.
"I'm always just passionate about my kids' schools," said Eneman, who moved to York from Vermont two years ago. "It's important enough for me to take my time and participate on this level."
Eneman said one of the wonderful things about the York Schools is that new ideas are given the opportunity to be tried out and grow. She runs the Horizons science program for second-graders at Village Elementary School and chaired the elementary schools' math and science fair, transforming the event so that it is driven more by the students and less by teachers and parents.
"You find these things that mesh with your personality and talents," said Eneman, who holds a Bachelor's degree in science and previously worked as a medical technician, "and if you have an idea, they're willing to say, go for it."
Eneman said education should really teach kids how to think and that the importance of education is a societal issue, not just for parents.
"We live in an increasingly complex world, and if we don't adequately educate our kids we, as a society, are going to suffer," she said.
Eneman said that growing up she experienced a wide variety of schools, from large districts to a two-room schoolhouse, attending primary school in Vermont, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
She supports all-day kindergarten after seeing the positive effect it had on her daughter in Vermont.
"It was a great experience for her," said Eneman. "I think that a full-day program gives you so much more academic time to spend."
Eneman said the state's proposed redistricting really got her adrenaline going. She said the solution should be to take a close look at how to best improve education by making some changes.
Instead, she said, the state's plan has become an "across-the-board, we're slashing costs, and this is how it's going to be."
Eneman said she's excited about the possibility of serving on the School Committee. She attended the first meetings at the York Public Library about redistricting and spoke up against the proposal to show her kids if you don't like something you need to speak up or otherwise, "You can't complain when down the road things don't go your way."
Mary Jane Merrill
Mary Jane Merrill
Incumbent Mary Jane Merrill, who replaced Dwight Bardwell on the School Committee when he resigned to seek his first term on the Board of Selectmen, is clearly passionate about education. She retired in York after working for 34 years as a first-grade teacher and a reading technician in Acton, Mass. She now continues that work by teaching French Impressionism to York's first-graders.
Merrill said she's impressed by her experience with the York School Department both as a School Committee member and as a volunteer.
"It's a well-run school system. There's a real caring for children," she said. "I've taught in some of the best schools in the country, and York can stand right up there with them."
Considering the big issue of school consolidation, Merrill said she realizes that some consolidation should probably be done but that Gov. John Baldacci's plan and the current state proposal have not been well thought out at all and shouldn't pass.
"When you're going to make decisions like that you've got to give it more time," she said. "Whatever I can do to defeat this issue, I will do."
Merrill said she believes strongly in teaching foreign languages to children at a younger age than the junior high school level introduction traditional in many American schools. She said she has considered both French and Chinese for York, but said Spanish makes sense since many York students will go to colleges around Boston, Mass., where it is the primary language of many residents.
Merrill said the schools do a good job making sure that the arts play an important part of their students' education, but said a new performing arts center is badly needed for York High School students who had to perform their holiday concert in Portsmouth, N.H., this past winter.
"We really need one here in town," said Merrill, who added that she goes to as many productions as possible. "As a town we need a place."
Merrill said she also supports all-day kindergarten because the students could accomplish more.
"These little ones are our future," she said.
Merrill, whose three daughters are also educators, said she feels "very, very strongly" that a person needs to give back to the community and she hopes to continue to support the "wonderful teachers and great administrators" who make up the York Schools. She said her experience on the School Committee has been very positive.
"It is a really wonderful committee," she said. "I've learned so much from it."
