JAY — Dozens of community members attended the Regional School Unit 73 directors meeting Thursday night, March 13, at Spruce Mountain High School and some shared their concerns following the arrest of a teacher.

Jan Barlow, 47 of Auburn, an art teacher at the high school was arrested March 8 and charged with sexual exploitation of a minor and allegedly trying to coerce the victim to destroy evidence, according to Jay Police Chief Joseph Sage. Bail of $5,000 was set for Barlow on Monday, March 10. Barlow resigned March 11.

A closed door session lasting about 20 minutes was held at the beginning of the meeting.

“Understandably, people have been upset with what is going on,” Superintendent Scott Albert said. A parental complaint was received and following protocol the staff person was put on payment administrative leave for an investigation on Thursday, February 27, he stated.

The Jay Police Department was notified, as was DHHS and the Maine Department of Education Certification department, he noted. “We will continue to work closely with our law enforcement on this matter,” he stated. “The staff person was arrested seven school days after the complaint was made and resigned late Tuesday afternoon, March 11, nine school days after the complaint.”

The Policy Committee will review policies and language in contracts will be seriously looked at in future, Albert added.

Chair Don Emery of Livermore Falls acknowledged the district is in a very difficult time. “I fully understand the deep concerns and passions that surround safety and wellbeing of our students,” he said. “Protecting our children from harm, including any potential threats such as child predators is something that every single one of us truly cares deeply about.

“We are here to listen as a school board and take your input seriously,” Emery continued. “Furthermore, if anyone has credible information regarding past or current situations involving teachers or any school personnel, we strongly encourage you to report it directly to the police. For any other concerns, I recommend bringing them to the attention of Scott Albert, superintendent. It is our collective responsibility as parents, teachers and community members to ensure that our children are protected and that the appropriate actions are taken when needed.”

Parental concerns

“I have lived in this community my entire life,” Tanya DiMillo said. “My children attended school in Jay, my grandkids have been in Spruce Mountain. I am concerned. We have a lot of good teachers in this district, a lot of good teachers, and I feel like they’re being drowned out by the bad ones. This is why I have an issue with unions. Julie and Rob Taylor, I know are very strong supporters of it and if every teacher in this district were like Julie and Rob, I would not have any problems standing here today. I wish that everybody was as dedicated as you both. We need to empower the good staff to stand up and say “enough is enough”, because, unfortunately, all we care about is the negative. More importantly, the administration needs to act on these things. Do the work. It is your job. We need to give the kids the best education possible. I realize teaching isn’t easy. If you choose to teach, do it well, go above and beyond for your students. If a coworker is doing something wrong or just not doing their job, speak up. Administrators, let’s pull up our straps and do our jobs. I do not believe that not one adult in this building didn’t know what was going on with what seemed to be many girls over the years. So I would like to figure out how we empower our good teachers to feel comfortable speaking up and coming forward and having something done about it.”

Mellette Pepin of Jay said she took her child out of the district two years ago. “Somebody knew something about this before,” she stated. “The girls coming out that I’m reading on Facebook, I’m sure everybody else are, who are not in the school right now, somebody knew about it.”

Police chief’s input

Sage said he was there representing the police and as a parent. “In dealing with this very tragic event that we’ve had come to light in the last couple of weeks, first let me say I commend the school for its handling of this matter,” he noted. “Principal Plourde immediately brought it to our school resource officer’s attention the very moment he was made aware of the matter. From then, a very quick response happened from the school district to remove this subject from the school, from having a contact with children.”

“Secondly, I would like to say that the school does a phenomenal job with its use of wisdom and discretion,” Sage said. “A lot of times these cases that, as a parent, anything that happens with our children, I think we all like to know immediately as soon as something happens. But as an investigator, I understand that in the day of digital media and social media, everything that people know is automatically uploaded for the whole world to see. And as an investigator, that’s a flaw, because if that had happened and we were not able to get the evidence that we needed for a successful prosecution, we would be victimizing the victims in this tragic circumstance even worse.”

Sage encouraged everybody to foster an atmosphere and a culture where young people can come forth and have the confidence to know that when they do disclose these matters, they’re not going to be vilified. “I am probably the only person with all the facts in this case, and I can tell you that there’s no indication at all some of these victims or anybody else knew what was going on, and that was because, out of their own words, they were too ashamed to tell anybody, and that’s a problem,” he stressed. “I think that we have created a culture where young people don’t feel comfortable coming forward and disclosing some things, and I think that we as adults and as parents in this room have an obligation to these children to make sure that we change that culture. Remember that there is only one villain in this story and that person was arrested last week and hopefully will be successfully prosecuted.”

Sage thanked those who took quick and necessary actions to get the best case resolution. “I would encourage anybody that does have information to please come forward and know that you will be supported, that we will encourage you every step of the way and that we will also do everything we can to protect you,” he stated.

Student questions

Student Alana Wing said, “School is supposed to be a safe place,” before referring to rumors circulating that Barlow had exhibited similar behavior previously. “If this is true, then I feel like there should be more precautions taken,” she stressed. “What about the current students. How are students supposed to be safe? The bullying is not controlled. There has also been a history of certain teachers and if you ask almost every girl at school, they will tell you that in the past, whether at Spruce Mountain Middle School or high school, they have had a gym teacher stare at their butt, which is incredibly disappointing, and that should not be happening over and over and over again. So I guess I’m just asking what’s being done to prevent this, because if students are openly talking about it at school, I am sure some teachers have overheard. I’m happy to be graduating soon. But this leaves me very concerned for our future generations.”

“We need to start being there for our students, being transparent about issues that go on because certain situations affect students for their entire lives,” she stressed. “Your students need a lot more support.”

Director’s thoughts

“Obviously some changes need to be made in this district, we have to have some difficult conversations,” Director Roger Moulton of Livermore Falls said. “This is my own opinion, the issue that we have is the union contracts.”

Moulton said 98% of educators are fantastic in this district. “I think we do better than many districts around us with the percentage of just fantastic people we have,” he noted. “But it’s no secret that the other 2% is absolutely awful, should no longer work in our district. We need to do something, because, as it stands right now, our staff members that belong to that union are by far more protected than our children.”

Adults should not be more protected than children and that union contract gives them that protection, Moulton stated. “I’ve asked in the past for student exit surveys,” he said. “I get objections to that. I would like us to install a student survey on exit of every year. They can be anonymous surveys, but there needs to be something put in our contract with language that says, if these surveys get a low enough score, these employees need to be brought to the board for review, with the possibility of terminating them on the free will termination that every other employer in State of Maine that isn’t controlled by a union gets to do.”

Students, parents can’t afford that, their parents can’t afford good lawyers, Moulton said. “Our students are the most important thing in this building,” he stressed. “We are allowing the union contracts to put them at risk. The recent event was not the only event of that nature, and I do believe some people in the district are aware of it. We need to hold our teachers accountable and unfortunately the way things are set up that can’t come out until the next contract. I hope my fellow board members and Scott will support this idea and have the truly difficult conversations and stand strong for our students, because, again, they are the most important people and protecting them first is the first priority.”