Hermon’s school superintendent Micah Grant unexpectedly announced his resignation on Monday after years of controversy.
Grant, who has attributed his resignation to “personal reasons,” has long found himself at odds parental rights advocates, one local Christian church, and journalists seeking public records, including the Maine Wire.
“My first question to him was asking about materials in the school, he told me they weren’t there. Within 20 minutes I proved him wrong, so out of the gate he lied to me, so right there my faith was gone, and it’s been this constant battle with him for the last three years, and there has been such a divide and so many issues in the town of Hermon with him as our leader,” said Regina Leonard, a mother with kids in the Hermon school system.
Grant’s resignation will take effect on June 21.
According to Leonard, who was at the board meeting when Grant made his announcement, there was no reason cited at the time for his resignation.
Instead of explaining his decision to the parents and teachers at the meeting, Grant got emotional while thanking people, and mentioned wanting more time with his family.
“When he submitted his resignation, I mean, my chin hit the floor. I was shocked, absolutely shocked,” said Leonard.
During an interview on WVOM’s George Hale and Ric Tyler Show, Leonard said that, prior to the meeting, parents set up their own cameras to record the proceedings, because they did not trust the school board to accurately record or livestream the public meetings.
Leonard is hopeful about the possible benefits to the town that will come from Grant’s resignation.
“I think he did the right thing,” said Leonard, “stepping down can start to hopefully put this town in the right direction.”
Throughout his time as superintendent, Grant has been awash in controversy, and has had multiple conflicts with concerned parents.
Despite being the Superintendent of Hermon’s schools, Grant’s children attend the private Bangor Christian School (BCS).
According to others who attended a BCS school meeting in early 2023, Grant became belligerent, yelling and demanding that the school have armed security. At the same time, Grant had resisted Hermon parents’ efforts to have an armed School Resource Officer protecting the Hermon schools.
Grant also circulated a letter criticizing the BCS for a lack of parental involvement in its decisions.
At the same time Grant pushed for more parental involvement in his own children’s private school, he was reluctant to address the concerns of parents who were unhappy with the sexually explicit material available to their children in the school’s library.
[RELATED: Maine Mom Rips Hermon School Board Over Lack of Rating System for X-Rated Library Books: Listen…]
Under Grant’s leadership, the school district even took legal action against Shawn McBreairty, a father and parental rights activist who was concerned about the LGBT ideology being pushed in the school.
Following parental outrage, some restrictions were placed on the school library’s sexually explicit books, despite Grant’s resistance.
Currently, parents are able to submit a voucher preventing their children from accessing the 81 sexually explicit books in the library, but the majority of students can still access them.
During Grant’s time as superintendent, the school district also became the subject of a religious discrimination lawsuit from The Pines Church.
[RELATED: Email Shows Hermon School Board Member Discriminated Against Christian Church Over Religious Views…]
While the church was trying to enter into an agreement to rent school property for Sunday services, a school board member, Chris McLaughlin, was allowed to ask them numerous questions about their beliefs on LGBT issues, questions which are not asked of other organizations looking to rent school property.
Although McLaughlin posed the questions as innocent inquiries, the church and many other observers viewed the massages as an attempt by McLaughlin to impose a litmus test based on his own religious beliefs about gender and human sexuality on the church.
Grant forwarded McLaughlin’s letter to the church, which implied that the pastor’s religious views regarding sexuality and gender would factor into the church’s ability to use school property because McLaughlin disapproved of their views.
McLaughlin’s anti-Christian emails, which have only been published in full by the Maine Wire, can be read below:
“I don’t think the church is going to back down, I think they’re going to take it the whole way, and I hope they do, they should, it’s wrong, and it shouldn’t have happened,” said Leonard.
The Maine Wire reached out for comment from Grant, asking why he tendered his resignation, and what he plans to do going forward.
He did not respond to the request for comment.
Listen to Leonard’s full interview on Grant’s resignation here.
My utmost respect and admiration toward Mrs Leonard
God Bless
If leftists didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all
Like cockroaches in bright light, leftists generally scatter when people expose their fascist tendencies.
So school libraries have enough money to buy perverted books but not STEM, or classics?
Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. Prov 16:18
Many thanks to all the wonderful Maine Wire journalists (Steve R./Seamus O.) who worked to compile the long history of a very sad chapter in the Hermon school system.