Dexter voters oust 2 school board members in recall

By Kathleen O’Brien, Bangor Daily News Staff

DEXTER — Dexter residents voted on Tuesday to remove two members of its local school board.

Dexter residents voted 387 “Yes” to 131 “No” to remove Alisha Ames from the Maine School Administrative District 46 school board. Judy Saunders also lost her seat on the same board in a 382 “Yes” to 186 “No” vote. 

The recall election was driven by a group of Dexter residents, calling themselves Stop the Power Trip, who ran a campaign against Ames and Saunders that unfolded primarily online. The group also gathered hundreds of signatures on two petitions to add two questions of whether to remove Ames and Saunders on the ballot. 

The recall group believed 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.

Ames and Saunders were two of the six Dexter representatives on the 13-member MSAD 46 school board, which covers Dexter, Exeter, Garland and Ripley. 

The public discord that escalated to an election is the latest example of how conflict within a small community can escalate to change the makeup of local boards. Those boards can control or influence future school decisions that affect the district’s students, staff and families. 

The Dexter residents said 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 MSAD 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, previously told the Bangor Daily News that she refutes the claim because she wants the best possible education for all Dexter students. 

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 MSAD 46 schools. She has cited both medical and religious reasons. 

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

The MSAD 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.

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

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