Five-way race in Cape

Two challengers take on three incumbents for three seats on the School Board

CAPE ELIZABETH — While there’s little excitement to this year's Town Council race in Cape Elizabeth, with just three candidates for three seats, the School Board battle is much more competitive.

In the Town Council race, incumbents Jessica Sullivan and Jim Walsh are  joined on the ballot by attorney James Wagner, owner of the Local Buzz café. Voters also will see a referendum question asking if they favor borrowing as much as $6 million toward renovation of Thomas Memorial Library, with as much as $3 million in addition funds generated through private fundraising.

In the School Board race, two challengers – William Gross and Michael Goulding – hope to unseat incumbents John Christie, David Hillman and Mary “Kate" Williams-Hewitt, a trio elected to their first terms three years ago.

Christie, 46, has lived in Cape Elizabeth since 2008 but still works in New York, where he is COO of IT services company Sinu. He has two children in the Cape school system.

“The real reason I'm running is I'm very excited about the work that we began on the school board,” said Christie on Monday. “We've had an opportunity to put a lot of new leadership in place and I really have a lot of enthusiasm for the future of this team.”

Hillman, 60, is an attorney with Portland firm Verrill Dana with one child, a high school senior.

“I’m running because I have the experience and the knowledge, after three years of dealing with massive cuts in state and federal funding while still managing to improve the school system at a reasonable cost to local taxpayers,” he said.

Williams-Hewitt, 48, a former special education teacher for Spurwink services, has taught at Children's Nursery School in Portland for the past eight years, and also tutors dyslexic children. She has four children, aged 9-20, all of whom have gone though the Cape Elizabeth school system.

“I'm running for a second term because I'm thankful for the school system we have and I believe we all need to do our part to give back,” she said.

Among the challengers, Gross, 66, is a retired telecommunications engineer, having worked in the U.S., Turkey and Nigeria. He spent the last decade of his career managing a group of computer programers for the South Portland office of a New York mutual company.

“I’m running because since retiring two years ago I’ve been volunteering two days a week in the honors freshman physics class,” said Gross. “I’ve seen the school system from the viewpoint of an adult and I’ve seen a lot of fantastic things I like and a few things I’d like to change.”

Goulding, 57, is a chiropractor with his own practice for the past 25 years. He has two children in the Cape school system, ages 9 and 13.

“I am running to be helpful to the community of Cape Elizabeth,” he said. “I have no agenda and will keep an open mind.”

All five candidates also cited eagerness to work on the school department’s strategic plan, due to be crafted over the coming year following unveiling of a new mission statement last month, as a prime motivating factor for getting in the race.

However, most, like Hillman, declined to say what types of policies and goals they will champion in the creation of that plan.

“This thing is just starting,” said Hillman. “We first have to find out what the parents think and what the teachers think and what the public thinks. To do otherwise would be like a judge deciding a case before the trial begins.”

Christie agreed that the key to the strategic planning process will be to “encourage the people to think freely and speak freely and ask big questions.”

“That’s the kind of think that’s most effective, not individual School Board members coming in and giving directions and setting an agenda,” said Christie.

“My goal when I ran last time was to protect the schools from what might have come in the wake of the financial crisis,” he said. “While we have not moved out of crisis mode completely, we are in an exciting time where we can start to think about how we can really move ahead.”

Christie and Williams-Hewitt both expressed support for an “all-day K” program in Cape Elizabeth, replacing the half day for kindergarten classes. Williams-Hewitt also said she’d like to expand “outdoor learning opportunities” while building on the “positive teacher-student relationships” she believes are already a vital part of Cape school culture.

“I also want to make sure that kids who don't learn easily, who struggle in school, that we on the School Board level and the curriculum level, that we are taking care all needs, that we accommodate all different types of learners,” she said.

Gross said he believes the education model of the last 100 years will “flip on its head” in the next few years. Instead of high school teachers giving the same lecture several times per day to several different classes and sending student off with homework, Gross predicts something based on the popular Kahn Academy of online videos. In this model, he said, teachers would record lectures to be watched at home and spend class time helping students on projects and papers.

“I think that strategic plan should have a little bit in there about at least taking the first few steps in that direction,” he said.

Finally, Goulding said he favors an “open-community concept” for Cape schools.

“I'm kind of a little bit in favor of longer school days, if it's done the right way, to open up things up for more after-school activities, to help out mom and dad who many be working.”