Three seats in Maine School Administrative District 40 are up for election on June 10, 2025. This district includes the towns of Warren, Waldoboro, and Union. Members are elected to three-year terms on the 16-member board.

Bangor Daily News’ Jules Walkup wrote, “A decade ago, little attention would have been paid to school board races in many parts of Maine. But RSU 40 has turned into a battleground over some of the hot-button social issues — especially around gender— that emerged during the early days of the COVID pandemic and have taken on new weight since President Donald Trump made them a central part of his new administration.”

According to the Penobscot Bay Pilot’s Sarah Masters, the district created guidelines that included “addressing students by their preferred name and pronouns, permitting them to use the locker rooms and restrooms that most closely match their gender identity, and developing a support plan for the student.” The plan was implemented in 2018 and amended in 2023, adding a section that set the policy so that an administrator would have to discuss with the student before disclosing the student’s gender identity to their parents.

On June 6, 2024, the board voted 8-8 to repeal the policy. The repeal passed due to a district rule implementing weighted voting by town size, which gave greater influence to the members who voted to repeal. Bangor Daily News’ Jules Walkup wrote, “supporters of the policy say that it helps marginalized students to feel more welcomed and gives staff more guidance about how to support them, while the board members opposed to the policy have argued that it undermines families and isn’t necessary given state protections for transgender people.” On August 1, 2024, after an election that shifted the balance of power to a liberal majority, the board voted to reinstate the policy.

Incumbent Julie Swindler and Richard Butler are running for one of the Warren seats. Swindler, who has served on the board since 2019, voted against repeal and in favor of restoring it. She said the rules were helpful to transgender youth and did not affect state law: “Transgender individuals deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. These actions were largely symbolic, as school boards do not have the authority to override state law.” Richard Butler is a military veteran and works for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Butler opposed the guidelines and wrote in a Facebook post, “[M]y biggest concern is the lack of immediate parental notification if a child wants to change their name or gender identity.”

In the other Warren seat, the incumbent Randy Kassa is running for re-election unopposed. He voted to repeal the policy in June 2024.

Incumbent Danny Jackson and Sonja Sleeper are running for the Waldoboro seat. Jackson, who has been on the board since 2012, supports the current policies and said, “I support current state law. I would not want to have the current policies changed.” Sleeper has not publicly shared her position on the policies.

In the Union seat, incumbent Erik Amundsen and Timothy Wood are running. Amundsen opposed the repeal and supports the district’s policies. Wood previously ran for a seat on the board in 2024 and opposed the policies during that campaign.

The towns in the district voted for Donald Trump (R) in 2024, but also voted for Democratic-caucusing Sen. Angus King (I).