The superintendent of the school district for Cumberland and North Yarmouth, Maine, denied to Breitbart News his district uses Critical Race Theory (CRT), and referred to a parent who has vehemently opposed woke education as “a vile person.”
“Our district does not use critical race theory,” Jeff Porter, superintendent of the Maine Administrative School District (MASD) #51, wrote to Breitbart News in response to a request for comment.
Critical Race Theory is a Marxist-based philosophy that embraces the concept that all social and cultural issues should be viewed through the lens of race and ethnicity.
Porter and school board members have been in a battle with Cumberland parent Shawn McBreairty, who has accused the board of illegally hiring a consultant to assist with education regarding racial equity, as the Press Herald had reported last fall.
“That is a fabrication Mr. McBreairty has concocted,” the superintendent continued about the parent’s accusation. “He has harassed anyone connected with equity work in the district, claiming we use this theory in our schools. It is simply untrue.”
Porter apparently told the Press Herald in November, however, “These are real conversations people in our country have all the time.”
“Just because we live in a state with little diversity doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be teaching our students about this,” he added. “It’s critical work, and unfortunately it gets politicized.”
McBreairty told Breitbart News that Porter served him with a criminal trespass order that bans him from school grounds, a situation that has required the parent to seek an exception that he be permitted to attend his twin daughters’ graduation ceremony on the school grounds in June.
“Mr. McBreairty on several occasions has created disruptions on school property, the latest one week ago,” Porter said in his comments to Breitbart News. “After one year of these disruptions, I asked the police to issue him a criminal trespass order, which they did. This means he is not allowed on school grounds. Graduation is held on school grounds, but he is allowed to request that he attends the ceremony. The ceremony is not for two weeks, thus why he does not yet have an answer.”
The superintendent referred to McBreairty’s outspoken criticism of him and members of the school board and the “equity committee” as “continued harassment” that “has caused a major disturbance in this otherwise quiet community.”
Porter continued about McBreairty:
He has posted vicious social media attacks, placed signs all up and down the major road where kids go to school with “Fire Porter” written on them, and bullied and targeted many members of the school community. He likes to claim his constitutional rights to do so but fails to consider that the rest of us also are protected by the same Constitution. He is, in summation, a vile person who has no regard for others. Do not be fooled by him.
As the Press Herald reported, McBreairty erected a poster board outside his home, which is located across from the district’s Greely Middle School, with a photo of school board member Ann Maksymowicz seated during the Pledge of Allegiance at a board meeting.
Maksymowicz reportedly told the Press Herald she remains seated for the Pledge of Allegiance in order to show respect to people in American who are not treated equally.
The report continued:
When Maksymowicz went to McBreairty’s house to talk to him about the sign, which is surrounded by rat traps and illuminated at night, she was served a criminal trespass warning. Even before the sign went up, Maksymowicz had sought a cease of harassment notice from police against McBreairty.
“I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t think he’s breaking laws, but it’s gotten nasty,” said board member Mike Williams. “It’s just disappointing. We’re a community, and we feel like the ugliness of national politics is being injected into our town.”
McBreairty told Breitbart News, however, that a sign that says “Honk to support our school board” was allowed across from his home, on school property, for over a week.
“We had horns honking at all hours of the night and early morning,” the parent said. “The School Board hires, fires and provides direction to the superintendent. They are his boss.”
Following the death of George Floyd, the district sent a letter to the community, detailing its decision to work with Community Change Inc. (CCI), a Boston-based company that self-describes on Twitter as “a non-profit that challenges systemic racism with a special focus on white people.”
“Can’t dismantle white supremacy without dismantling capitalism,” CCI states.
Recently, CCI has tweeted and retweeted anti-Israel posts, including one from a Twitter user who claimed, “Israel is following the US blueprint”:
How are libraries responding to the what is happening to Palestinians? Are they still quiet about it? Are they still exercising defacto censorship?
— Community Change (@CCIBoston) May 13, 2021
Israel is following the US blueprint pic.twitter.com/wsu8agtlYl
— 🕊Guillotine Party ☭ 🔜 (@Chacelounge) May 12, 2021
In its “equity statement” to the school district’s community, dated June 1, 2020, the “Equity Leadership Steering Committee of MSAD #51” wrote, “As a majority white school district, we stand in solidarity with Black Movement leaders.”
The statement continued:
We call for justice for George Floyd and for the many other black lives that have been taken by white supremacy in our nation. It is our duty to educate ourselves and dismantle the violent and oppressive structures which have kept us divided.
We echo the words of the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota: “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.”
We cannot move forward until we reconcile the intentional barriers white people have built to harm black people. Barriers that prevent black people from having access to rigorous education in safe and nurturing environments. Barriers that deny safe and affordable housing. Barriers that restrict healthy and affordable food. We recognize that black people experience violence every single day because of our white supremacist society.
We are a committee of engaged parents, students, educators, board members, and residents all committed to working to better ourselves and our future by educating our students that Black Lives Matter.
We are committed to creating an equitable and just school district and community. We are committed to centering voices that have been historically marginalized. We are committed to creating change.
We are continuing to partner with Community Change Inc. to guide us on this journey. We are actively learning that the supposed truths we’ve been socialized to believe about blackness are violent and untrue. We will work to assess our curriculum, educate our community within and outside of our school campus, dismantle the anti-blackness all of us have internalized by living in a society built on white supremacy, and provide tools to interrupt anti-black racism.
We grieve for George Floyd.
We grieve for Breonna Taylor.
We grieve for Ahmaud Arbery.
We grieve for all of the black lives taken by white supremacy.
In Solidarity,
The Equity Leadership Steering Committee of MSAD #51
At a school board meeting held in the wake of the public statement, the Press Herald reported McBreairty said, the “agenda-based learning principles of MSAD 51 should be very alarming to the parents in the district.”
“Porter has retaliated against me in the press, via local senators, via email to the employees of MSAD51 and through and by members of the school board,” McBreairty told Breitbart News. “All for asking questions about what is being taught to our kids, with our tax money and having a dissenting opinion that I didn’t want my kids subject to this CRT garbage.”
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