South Portland School Board Vice Chair Adrian Dowling resigned effective Monday. His term was due to expire in 2027.
His decision came just days after recall papers were taken out against him and school board Chair Rosemarie De Angelis.
In the recall petition, Ali Aldhamen, a registered voter in South Portland, said that the members’ support for grade-level reconfiguration “overrides unanimous opposition expressed by parents and community members at public workshops.”
The school board voted last week to close James O. Kaler Elementary School and reconfigure the remaining four elementary schools by grade levels.
Dowling said that he voted in compliance with state law and school department policy.
“Recalling an elected official based solely on a difference of opinion is almost certainly not what South Portland’s founders had in mind when they wrote the city charter,” Dowling said. “If that precedent is set, no elected official in this community will be able to serve for more than a month or two, because there have always been disagreements and there always will be.”
And this budget season has been particularly painful.
The school district had to cut about $8.4 million from its proposed budget to hold the tax increase to 6%, the higher end of what school board members and city councilors have recommended, Assistant Superintendent Johanna Prince said.
About 50 department employees were notified last month that their positions would be eliminated.
“Being a board of education member was never about me.” Dowling said. “It was about civic duty and giving back to the community. I hope whoever replaces me will feel the same way.”
