SAD 46 School Board fight escalates to a town vote

By Kathleen O’Brien, Bangor Daily News Staff

DEXTER — Dexter voters will decide on June 10 whether two Maine School Administrative District 46 school board members should be removed.

A group of Dexter residents, calling themselves Stop the Power Trip, gathered hundreds of signatures on two petitions to add two questions to the ballot for the upcoming election. 

The two questions will ask whether to remove Alisha Ames and Judy Saunders from the SAD 46 School Board, which covers Dexter, Exeter, Garland and Ripley. They are two of the six Dexter representatives on the 13-member panel.

The recall group says Ames has a conflict of interest because she co-owns and operates a homeschooling co-op, and Saunders should be removed because she violates the school district’s nepotism policy, according to the recall affidavits against the women. 

The impending election to remove Ames and Saunders is the latest example of conflict within a small community escalating to legal action. The results of the election next month could both change the environment of school board meetings and influence future school decisions that affect the district’s students, staff and families. 

Of the Dexter residents who make up the Stop the Power Trip committee — Tiffany Grover, Jennifer Barrera, Glen Race, Shelly Peakes and Meghan Butler — only Grover has previously served on the SAD 46 board. 

Grover served from January 2022 to December 2024 but did not win re-election. Barrera and Race unsuccessfully ran for seats on the board in November 2024 against Saunders. Peakes and Butler have no known school board experience. 

The list of accusations the group stacked against Ames is lengthy, and many of the claims — and Ames’ response to them — have played out on social media. 

Ultimately, the Dexter residents say Ames’ position on the school board is “a conflict of interest and is detrimental to the school district and community of Dexter,” because Ames co-owns and operates a homeschooling co-op, according to the affidavit for Ames’ recall. 

The homeschooling organization is connected to Power Source Ministries, which Ames and her husband founded and where she is a pastor. The Stop the Power Trip committee says that this homeschooling enterprise competes with SAD 46 and Ames’ loyalties lie with the homeschool group.

Ames, who was elected to the board in November 2023 and began her three-year term in January 2024, refutes that claim. 

“I want what is best for the children of Dexter, and for public schools to be open and transparent and welcoming to every child, and to provide the best possible education to our kids,” Ames said. 

The Stop the Power Trip group also called attention to Ames giving inconsistent reasons on public forums for at least one of her children being unvaccinated, which bars him from attending SAD 46 schools. She has cited both medical and religious reasons.

Ames said on her family’s decisions “have no bearing on my serving on the school board.”

“The fact that the recall committee is making my child’s vaccination status part of the reasons for their wasteful action highlights the baselessness of the recall,” Ames said. 

Grover said the Stop the Power Trip group takes issue with Ames’ changing her public explanation for not vaccinating her child, not whether she vaccinated her child. 

“I understand and empathize with the concept that whether or not you vaccinate is a personal choice for your family to make,” Grover said. “It’s not about why she chooses to vaccinate or not. It’s about blatantly lying to voters.” 

Ames said she has not sought a medical exemption for her child to attend public school or participate in school sports or extracurricular activities. 

In the school board’s May 7 meeting, Chair Michael Burton removed Ames from committees as a “reprimand” for her “continual inability to follow direction from our legal counsel to not destroy our code of ethics on a regular basis.” 

Ames had sat on the school department’s Curriculum and Instruction Committee and the Negotiations Committee, according to the school district’s website. 

“There’s not a lot of things a board chair can do in terms of reprimand when there’s bad behavior or potential lawsuits, but pulling people off of committee assignments is one of those things,” Burton said. 

Burton did not explain what legal counsel Ames allegedly bucked or how she has violated the school board’s code of ethics when asked by a reporter. Instead, he said the board prioritizes maintaining “a respectful and productive environment” so it can make sound decisions for the good of the district’s students, staff and families. 

In Saunders’ case, the Stop the Power Trip committee alleges that her school board position  violates the district’s nepotism policy because she has an adult child who works in the district. 

“This situation puts our students at risk for possibly losing an educator,” Grover said. “It also puts Judy’s child at risk for possibly losing their job and it’s unfair.” 

The SAD 46 nepotism policy prohibits the school board from employing “any person who is a member of the immediate family of a board member or of the Superintendent.” 

Nepotism that occurred before the rule was adopted in September 2017 is grandfathered, according to the policy. The nepotism policy allows exceptions, as long as the person is not the spouse of a board member or superintendent.

Saunders was elected in November 2024 and began her three-year term in January. Her daughter was already employed by the district and protected by a contract, according to Saunders. 

Saunders did not say what position her daughter has in the district or how long she has been working there. 

In December, Saunders said Kevin Jordan, SAD 46 superintendent, and the school board chair and vice chair told her that if she took her position, her child would be fired. 

“I viewed this as an attempt to coerce me into giving up my civil rights,” Saunders said. 

Multiple public records show there is a Kevin and Anne Jordan who live in Dexter. There is an Anne Jordan who works as an interventionist at an SAD 46 school, according to the school’s website. 

Kevin Jordan did not return requests for comment on the district’s nepotism policy or whether he received an exemption to the rule. 

The Stop the Power Trip group needed 296 signatures on each petition to add the recall questions to the June 10 ballot. Before certification, the petitions for Ames and Saunders garnered 363 and 350 signatures, respectively. 

Susan Page, Dexter town clerk, certified those signatures this week and the Dexter Town Council accepted the petitions on May 8, officially placing them on the ballot.