Parent in Contentious Controversy With School Board Banned From Attending Daughters’ Graduation

Cumberland, Maine father Shawn McBreairty has been banned from his twin daughters’ high school graduation following considerable friction with the school board over the issue of Critical Race Theory in the classroom. Explaining his objections, he said in an interview last month, “this wasn’t how I taught the girls, and, frankly, I didn’t want the school teaching this kind of information to my kids.”

The contretemps began a year ago, in the wake of the death of George Floyd, when superintendent Jeff Porter of Maine School Administrative District 51 sent a letter to parents on June 1st that read in part:

“In a culture that continually reinforces white supremacy, justice can only be achieved when we confront and repair the anti-Blackness woven through every aspect of society—in our homes, schools, workplaces, communities, places of worship, and government”

“I felt assaulted,” McBreairty said.

A follow-up email went out two days later, which was clearly a response to a negative reaction from parents:

“I realize not everyone is going to receive the message in the way it was intended. I also recognize that some of the terminology may have felt confrontational, such as ‘white majority’ and ‘white supremacy.’”

Porter also informed parents that the school board was retaining the services of Community Change, Inc., a Boston-based firm that, to quote their mission statement, “promotes racial justice and equity by challenging systemic racism and acting as a catalyst for anti-racist learning and action.” Their website goes on to state that: “CCI's work in 1968 through to today is to meet the challenge of ‘the White Problem.’”

To put that in context, their June 2020 newsletter flatly states that “if we say we are committed to ending white supremacy, then we must also end capitalism.”

By September, McBreairty had waxed publicly vocal in his opposition to Community Change and its effect on his daughters’ school curriculum. (MSAD51 would subsequently sever its relationship with Community Change.) This put him and other concerned parents on a collision course with Ann Maksymowicz, MSAD51’s equity lead.

At one school board meeting, another opponent of the new curriculum used his share of a three-minute comment period to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Maksymowicz did not rise for the Pledge: “I do not participate in the Pledge of Allegiance since not everyone in our country has equal rights and protections,” she subsequently explained. McBreairty took a photograph of the incident and posted it online, “and then half the town lost their mind…they couldn’t believe that I took a picture of an…elected official and sent it out to the world.” This was the first of a series of actions that would severely polarize the largely affluent community. “Half the town thought I was a hero,” McBreairty said, “and half the town thought I was something else.”

He subsequently turned the photo into a sign, which he displayed outside his house. Maksymowicz claimed the sign was a form of harassment and went to McBreairty’s wife to ask that it be taken down. McBreairty responded by having a Criminal Trespass Warning issued…and then got a bigger sign. (“Leftists lose their mind over signs; they are triggered by signs,” he later observed.)

For her part, Maksymowicz described events on the GoFundMe page she set up “to counter harassment in C[umberland] &N[orth] Y[armouth] Maine”:

“After I received the Criminal Trespass Warning [McBreairty] turned the image into a giant, billboard-sized sign. He illuminated it at all hours of the day and claimed it was booby-trapped with rat traps and electric wiring. A game camera was mounted in the tree above it. The sign stayed up through the winter and was even decorated for the Christmas holiday.”

The GoFundMe campaign, an attempt “to find a way to create some good out of this situation,” has raised over $12,500, which Maksymowicz has stated will be used for community causes, including the teaching of an anti-racist curriculum in schools.

The battle raged on (“I just kept counterpunching,” said McBreairty), eventually with calls for the firing of both Porter and Maksymowicz. Those calls turned predictably ugly (“vote for a MORON you wouldn’t let walk your dog” is a sample of the kind of language that was circulating).

The sign eventually came down, but McBreairty subsequently hung a bed sheet with “honk if you support our school board” written on it on a school fence. By his report, the sign was garnering honks at 2:30 AM. He then replaced the sheet with a giant version of the sign with Maksymowicz seated for the Pledge of Allegiance. Within an hour, police and maintenance personnel showed up to remove it.

Shortly thereafter, on May 15, McBreairty was served with a Prohibitive Conduct Warning that barred him from all school property under threat of arrest. That action effectively banned him from attending the graduation ceremonies on June 6.

He has since applied in writing to Porter for permission to attend both a band concert on June 1 (“this request is denied”) and the graduation. Porter responded to the latter request as follows:

“I am tentatively approving your request to attend the GHS graduation on June 6, with conditions. I will get those conditions to you in the next week or so prior to graduation, which will include expectations to be followed at the event. In the meantime, your continued adherence to the criminal trespass order is necessary.

As a superintendent, I have good reason not to let you attend this event, as a parent I believe that granting this request is important.”

A further letter from Porter that McBreairty posted on Facebook used far less measured language.

Thus far, there has been no indication as to what the conditions to be placed on McBreairty’s attendance at graduation are to be, nor whether McBreairty will agree to them.