DrummondWoodsum is running a legal monopoly on school board member bullying in Maine

They also have a “disdain for parents who want to be involved in their child’s education”

DrummondWoodsum is running a legal monopoly on school yard, legal bullying.  They like to push around newly elected Maine K-12 public school board members to make sure they don’t get any wild thoughts of actually working for the taxpayers to improve these horrific schools.  Their own web page lists over 40 lawyers working in the education space to ensure that you, as a parent, have very limited, if any, rights to your children, trapped behind the brick walls of the school.  

It’s a multi-million dollar grift and these far-left taxpayer paid, legal radicals are billing your local school district to the tune of about $350/hr and they couldn’t care less if the school solves the problem or not, as long as they have billable hours.  As we say, “Follow the money folks.”  

DrummondWoodsum, building a business in Portland on the backs of Maine taxpayers since 1965.

This will be the first in a multi-part series of articles exposing DrummondWoodsum as the far-left law firm that they are.  First up, let's review how they make their vast amounts of money, something that they have been pushing for decades on the backs of the Maine taxpayers.  I believe we will find that DrummondWoodsum represents some 9 out of 10 of the 253 Maine school districts.  A literal, legal monopoly.  

DrummondWoodsum most likely has no contract with your local schools.  It’s a “wink, wink” deal for around $350/hr.  (Most town lawyers are paid around $200/hr.) They just love the superintendents who can’t simply follow the laws and those who can’t think critically.  DrummondWoodsum lawyers propose that they only work for the superintendent of the school district and have stated in the past that if members of the school board (the boss of the superintendent and who also approve the expenses of the district to pay these bloodsuckers) emails them, DrummondWoodsum may choose not to reply.  

Imagine telling your boss’ boss to go pound sand!?

In fact, when you FOAA your local school district for the last 12 months of legal invoicing (and I beg you to) you’ll find that there isn’t even a written agreement on how much the lawyers will charge your local school.  No menu, no service fees to review, nothing!  

Hermon, ME School Department has no contract with DrummondWoodsum, just like MSAD51, just like RSU22.  

They appear to make the fees up as they go along and your local school is most likely providing DrummondWoodsum tens of thousands of dollars a year on wasted legal discussions.  There isn’t even an itemized breakdown of hours spent, just a general listing per item and a total at the bottom of the invoice.  The towns pay the school big checks each month, the school pays DrummondWoodsum, no questions asked.  No review of any itemized fees, just keep paying and keep quiet.  

Hermon, ME School Department DrummondWoodsum invoice totalling $6,081.40 for May, 2023 alone!

Jeff Porter, one of the highest paid Superintendents in Maine, of MSAD51 Greely Schools in Cumberland, ME spent over $20,000 with DrummondWoodsum in 2020 alone to try and silence me from exposing them for pushing Critical Race Theory on students as young as kindergarteners.  I’d estimate in 2021, when things really got heated, he easily spent another $25,000 to $35,000 of taxpayer dollars on trying to keep me quiet.  But, of course, dozens of journalists proved the same thing that I did and the story ended up going global.  You see, even DrummondWoodsum can’t hold back the Truth and you can stand up to them with the facts.

Along with the undocumented fee structure, DrummondWoodsum pitches to your local school district a $1,400, “Newly updated Maine Staff Training Video Suite for the 2023-2024 School Year.”  Here you can learn about Maine’s Freedom Of Access Act (FOAA), which they hate to comply with and provide useful idiots like Hermon School Department’s Superintendent Micah Grant direction to illegally withhold copyrighted materials from taxpayers.  So much wasted time and effort is spent keeping the taxpayers in the dark.  They absolutely hate transparency.  

You can also find out more about the “gender equity” nonsense being pushed as a social contagion inside our K-12 public schools in Maine and other topics, as DrummondWoodsum is an integral part of the plan to brainwash your students.  All part of the trans-cult.  

These fascists plan’s won’t work inside our schools without a bully to push you around.

DrummondWoodsum also wants to bilk schools for another $1,500 for an annual membership to help provide your school job searches, on something called “ServingSchools.com.”  But in reality, all they serve is themselves and overall they really make an amazing living on the backs of Maine taxpayers, filling their pockets with millions and millions of dollars.  Because not many dare to question why they are doing what they are doing.  It’s time to step up, Maine.  

They are interconnected like a parasite with the Maine School Management Association (MSMA), a liberal, taxpayer funded activist group led by a failed ex-superintendent, Steve Bailey and the completely unhinged Director of Communications, Vicki Wallack.  The MSMA’s role, after taking nearly $700,000 in taxpayer dollars from the 253 Maine school districts, are liberally crafting most, if not all of your local school board policies with DrummondWoodsum’s direction.  We may find that the only contract DrummondWoodsum has is through the MSMA, as I’ve recently requested this information via FOAA.  

MSMA’s Director of Communications, Vicki Wallack claims FOAA requests “are just another form of hate speech.”

The MSMA is a pseudo-lobbying organization that only works for the far-left, pushing out legislation to “shrink the box” of statutes which currently give local control to Maine school boards.  MSMA’s apparent goal is to override this local control and run everything from Augusta.  The Maine School Superintendent Association (MSSA) and the Maine School Boards Association (MSBA) are two other taxpayer paid offshoots of the MSMA.  Add in the racist ramblings of the Cultural Competency Institute and they have a fully rounded far-left, radicalized agenda for your school board.  The short story is they are selling the “solution” to the nightmare they have created in our K-12 public Maine schools.  

As one Maine school board member stated about the state’s push for bigger and more centralized control, “This is a new government tactic being employed in numerous industries such as education, medical, and transportation in order to get us to turn over control, first to the state and ending with the federal government.  What is the motive?  Money!”  Keep following the money folks.  

“DrummondWoodsum and MSMA make big money from every district in this state by providing ‘advice’ to boards and administrators who are too afraid of being sued to make a decision using their own knowledge,” this school board member goes on to say.  The Covid plandemic was a financial free-for-all for DrummondWoodsum, inciting school board members to shut down parental rights and mask up our children with no scientific proof of any of it working.  

The MSMA, backed up by DrummondWoodsum, is all part of an unelected, non-government organization overreach posturing to reshape our schools in Maine and our country as a whole, all in the name of “helping students.”  In reality, all they have helped for the last several decades is to advance the liberal left’s push to graduate little socialist democrats each May from high schools all around Maine.  Their plan has been working really well, until we started to expose it.

Most Maine school board members have no idea what their role is, or what their own district policies are and in most cases, they think they work for the superintendent!  I proved this in MSAD51 with the hapless ex-Chair, Tyler McGinley.  She had not a clue what her own policies were and there was a literal police stand off inside the Greely performing arts building in the fall of 2020, when I called her bluff about holding her to their own public comment policies.  

She caved and “For the first time in four years” Ms. McGinley followed their policy.  They very quickly set out to change the public comment policy to take away the rights of parents, but I had my first of many wins, the biggest is when she finally resigned.  

There are only two reasons for Maine school board members to exist.  

1) To create policy.  2) To hold the superintendent accountable.  

You will unfortunately find a lot of people on Maine schools boards who are not truly engaged to help the students.  Most of these are liberal democrats, some are republicans, but I don’t believe it is always their own fault.  Just look for those school board members who sit in the meetings and never say a word.  Never question anything.  Never raise and hand.  Don’t even look at the students, parents, taxpayers and teachers giving public comments about how bad their local school is.  Many school board members are afraid to say anything because they’ve been bullied by DrummondWoodsum and advised not to rock the boat, or they might be held “personally liable.”  My conscience simply won’t let me stand on the sidelines and not say a word.  

DrummondWoodsum is also in bed with the Maine Education Association (MEA), which is the Maine teachers union, another group of far-left taxpayer activists who push 99% democrat school board members in Maine.  This group along with the Maine Department Of Education (MDOE) under the horrific leadership of Commissioner Pender Makin and Governor Janet Mills have deliberately dumbed down an entire generation of Maine students.  Yet not one school board member in Maine that I’m aware of has ever brought up the actual results of the educational assessments?  Anyone else wonder why this is?  

Governor Janet Mills, MDOE Commissioner Pender Makin and the MSMA have created the dumbest generation of Maine students in our history.

I’ve had several Maine school board members provide me source content on just how much DrummondWoodsum likes to throw their taxpayer fed weight around, bullying them into submission to follow the hive mind of these far-left radicals running our public K-12 schools for the last several decades, with our negative return on the greatest investment taxpayers have ever made.  But, these lawyers don’t dare do it in public.  

Two sources stated DrummondWoodsum illegally pushed their school board to enter into an executive session for a “training,” which isn’t a valid reason to enter into executive session in Maine, because it’s not all about a real “legal” issue.  Towards the end of one of these training sessions, after the lawyer participated in shaming and blaming one of the conservative members of the board, the DrummondWoodsum lawyer offered their $65 school law book to the liberal school board members.  But when the conservative member asked for a copy, the lawyer replied “You will have to pay for yours!”  

DrummondWoodsum lawyers often claim that these elected school board officials, representing the constituents in the town that elected them, via ballot, “Do not work for the community at all.”  They like to claim that they work for the State, not the local people who have children in the failing school system.  Again, it’s a scare tactic, and one that Maine school board members need to push back on.  It’s all to ensure no one starts to ask too many questions about the liberal indoctrination happening in our schools.  

If there wasn’t a lawyer to bully board members, more of them would be speaking up.

DrummondWoodsum lawyers like to subtly tell a new Maine school board member that they, themselves, may be held accountable for lawsuits.  In one such example, the lawyer said, “The head of the Maine Human Rights Commission, Amy Sneirson, is actively looking to file discrimination suits on any school board that the members use ‘discriminatory language’ of the LGBTQ+ community, including in private life.  That these suits would cost the school a lot of money.  These lawsuits would not be based on any person complaining to the human rights commission. And it would be based on the so-called ‘settled law’ that our liberal state government has made up.”  I’ll expose more of this “settled law” nonsense in my next piece.  

One Maine school board member stated, “Our chair asked DrummondWoodsum to give a presentation to our board members about the legal responsibilities of the board and the statutes.  We were given a “practical guide” written by DrummondWoodsum.  Between the presentation and the guide, I found the material contradicted the statutes in that the statutes are purposely broad and give great latitude to each individual school board; yet, the attorneys would have us believe that our scope is really quite narrow and limited.”  Do your own homework folks, don’t allow yourself to be pushed around anymore.  

This Maine school board member goes on to say, “Eventually, I was able to get the (DrummondWoodsum) presenter to admit that the statute is a big box within which we function and into this box we take our community values and needs with us as we operate the district.  I assure you that is not what was suggested at first, and I do believe that that misrepresentation is by design.  If we willingly close ourselves into a small box until we are void of any ability to consider our individual communities or students, then it is an easier sell to legislators who are all too willing to grab control of local education and give each student a government-owned, corporate-operated education…” 

The unholy connection between the MSMA and DrummondWoodsum gets even clearer, as stated by this Maine school board member.  “After that exposure, I gladly accepted the offer to attend the MSMA Fall Conference in Augusta this past October.  I felt that the opportunity would either confirm or dispel my concerns.  Unfortunately, my initial impression was correct and there were many red flags, only causing greater concern for where we are headed if we let MSMA and DrummondWoodsum drive the bus.”  

They continue, “For both days, DrummondWoodsum presented at least one topic per session.  In addition, MDOE presented at least one topic per session.  Some sessions, such as Emotional Intelligence and Surviving the Controversial Book Challenge, left me disappointed and thankful my kids are being homeschooled.”  

Imagine pushing “how to survive a book challenge,” without ever speaking to the reason the books are challenged in the first place, because they are filled with inappropriate and hyper-sexualized materials?  More on this in the coming articles.  

“Overall, there was an almost disdain for parents who want to be involved in their child’s education,” said one school board member.

This school board member continues with their summation of the situation, “They (the MSMA and DrummondWoodsum) want them (school board members) to be involved as long as they agree with the “experts” and not ask any questions.  

“I felt like that was the expectation for attendees at this conference, as well.  Any time questions were asked to bring about discussion and another perspective, it seemed that the presenter quickly dismissed the differing idea and called on another more agreeable attendee…It didn’t feel like a very welcoming environment unless you held the same belief, that MSMA and DrummondWoodsum were the all-knowing resource and to be obeyed.  And while trust was the opening session and interspersed through-out the two days, I walked away feeling anything but trusting of this organization and its motives.”  Such a disappointing quote from a school board member, but the reality of the world we live in.  

Take the situation that continues to unfold in AOS93, Damariscotta, ME a town of 2,500 residents on the coast of Maine, as picturesque a little town could be, where DrummondWoodsum is assisting the school district to defend Samuel Roy, who just may be a woman attempting to transition to be a “man,” who is a social worker there in the Great Salt Bay Middle School.  They attempted to mentally, physically and sexually transition a 13-year- old female student, by calling her different names and using male pronouns at school.   Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst part of this situation.  

Roy also provided this minor child two chest binders, used to compress and hide the developing breasts of young women, to make their appearance more manly.  These medieval torture devices can cause some 28 different side effects, some which may become permanent.  Roy then told this 13-year-old girl to keep all this a secret from their parents!  This case is ongoing, but it gives you insight into what evil and wicked people work for DrummondWoodsum, who is participating in defending sexual grooming taking place in Maine’s K-12 schools.   

Again, I beg you, please submit a Freedom Of Access Act (FOAA) request to your local school district for the last 12 months of legal fees paid to DrummondWoodsum, or any lawyers.  It’s as easy as sending the chair of your local school board an email.  You will be shocked by the amount of money spent and the information you collect back.  It is an all out war against parental rights in our local schools and these lawyers are a key part of the bullying process to ensure no parent stands tall.  

This educational journalist does feel that our Maine schools are worth saving, but this is a long term project.  Remember, they’ve had decades to screw them up.  If you want to work to protect our children’s education in Maine you must work to rid your local school board of these far-left radicals and replace them with critical thinkers.  Then, in the end, you let our school boards and administrators use current statutes to shape future school policies specific to helping their district and student body, not the taxpayer paid activists that have infiltrated our school systems.  We at Maine First Project can help you with this effort.  There should be no forgotten parents in Maine.

Local school boards should immediately review their “affiliation” with DrummondWoodsum and take appropriate action, as they see fit.  

I often say, these schools as they are currently constituted are irreparably broken.  Pull your children out of these schools now and either homeschool them, or place them in a Christian, or private school.  It is their only hope for a great education as the current risk to their lives in these local indoctrination centers is too high.  

You as a parent are only rolling the dice each day, hoping your child comes back from school the way they went in.  Innocent, eyes wide open, alive.  

Shawn McBreairty is the Director of Special Projects at Maine First Project, a non-profit organization offering grassroots advocacy training in multiple areas.  For three years, Shawn has been exposing CRT and the hyper-sexualization of minors (“aka” grooming in the classroom) as well as many dangers within the programs, teachings and curriculum of Maine and this nation’s public, K-12 schools. Check out Shawn's Podcast, “Maine Source Of Truth,” which can be found anywhere you listen.  Follow the podcast page on Facebook and @ShawnMcBreairty on social media.