Dear Editor:

Doug Smith, Sharon Nichols and Gene Stover have joined together to run for school board seats. We have many years working together as a team and possess the knowledge, time and contacts to make things happen quickly in starting up our school system.

We are very concerned that the withdrawal agreement was signed seven months ago and a school board election is still weeks away. As the commissioner of education told Doug in early November, “It is much harder to put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” and he stressed the need to move very quickly because we were behind in our schedule.

We are literally starting a school system from scratch with no central office staff and with school now in mid session with a mandated start date of our school system for July 1, 2014. With other school systems that have voted to withdraw already ahead of us now in the process, the pool of potential superintendents, retired or willing, has shrunk.

Since all three of us have been involved with the original Wiscasset School system for years as teachers, administrators and/or board members, we have the knowledge and contacts to literally start the day after the election. We have already reached out for help from previous or current personnel, and we have been working on a plan of action for things that need to be done immediately after the election. If we are not elected, we have also agreed amongst ourselves to turn over all of our work.

Please vote for all three of us as the learning curve on school law is long and complicated and we have lost many months from when the agreement was signed. The time commitment in the first months will approach 10 to 20 hours a week per member. As a group, we have the time, the desire, the knowledge and the collective experience to start the day after the election.

Doug Smith, Gene Stover, Sharon Nichols
Wiscasset