MORRILL - Three candidate for a single seat on the new Regional School Unit 71 board of directors will compare views at a candidates’ night this Thursday night.  

Veteran school board member Jean Dube is throwing her hat back in the ring after a two year hiatus. Her competitors Bernadette Dutra and Molly Feeney each have outside educational experience and are hoping voters will favor a fresh face on the new school board. 

RSU 71 comprises Belfast, Belmont, Morrill, Searsmont and Swanville. The district was created by a November referendum in which voters approved withdrawaing from RSU 20 and starting a new school district, since dubbed RSU 71. Elections for the innaugural school board will be held on Jan. 13. [date corrected from a earlier version of this article]

Dube, a retired teacher, served as chairwoman of the SAD 34 and RSU 20 board of directors from 2006 to 2012. Her time in the consolidated district was fraught with conflicts and stalemates. In RSU 71 she sees a chance to get back to work without all of that.

“I feel that many of the things that needed to get done in those six years never got done.“

Bernadette Dutra and Molly Feeney are each looking at the elections as a different kind of fresh start. Both have connections to the area and outside experience in education but are seeking elected office for the first time.

In a letter to voters, Dutra highlighted that she is the only candidate who is “personally invested” in the district through a child — her son is in first grade at Weymouth Elementary School. She also noted that she alone attended school in Morrill.

Dube and Feeney aren’t exactly out-of-towners; both were students of SAD 3 in Western Waldo County. 

Dutra was part of the strategic action committee that revived the Good Will-Hinckley School in Skowhegan. She contrasted this experience in school reorganization with Dube’s tenure on the board of RSU 20 in the first years after the consolidation. 

“She has more experience than I do, but I have successful experience,” Dutra said.

Feeney, a Knox native who had Dube for a teacher in fifth and sixth grades recently returned to Maine after four years in Washington DC where she got her master’s degree and taught at a private high school. Today she is principal at the Ironwood School.

On running against Dube, she said, “I know that she comes with a lot of experience in the classroom and organizing policy as well. I certainly wouldn’t knock Mrs. Dube because she was my teacher, but I’m hoping people will welcome a fresh perspective.”

Whether voters want a new face or a familiar one remains to be seen. In comments at public meetings and on the RSU 71 Facebook page, some clearly see the new district as a blank slate, one that has quickly been inked to the margins with exhaustive wish lists. The approved reorganization plan, by contrast, comes off more like a return to the former SAD 34.

In neighboring Belfast, five of the nine candidates are current RSU 20 board members; the rest are first-time office seekers. Dube’s place is unique in that her roots in local school politics go deeper than any of the current Belfast board members. Her tenure also includes successes that predate the troubled RSU 20.

“I thought my experience might help RSU 71 get off the ground on a good foot,” she said. “It could be to my benefit and it could go against me. I’m just working in the present an I haven’t given it any thought beyond that.” 

Morrill voters can hear more from the RSU 71 candidates Thursday, Jan. 8 at 6:30 p.m. at the Morrill Community Center.

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com