LEWISTON — The School Committee voted 6-3 Monday night to table discussions about an agreement to allow Maine Inside Out to continue its work to create original theater with Lewiston Middle and High school students.
With committee members Elizabeth Eames, Tanya Whitlow and Chairman Megan Parks voting against tabling the issue, committee members were split on the decision after an apparent connection between the group and a person who is accused of murdering two people in southern Maine came to light.
Marcel LaGrange, 24, is accused of killing a couple in front of their children in June. He was charged with six crimes associated with the incident and pleaded not guilty and not criminally responsible because of insanity, according to an Aug. 31 article by the Portland Press Herald.
After the incident, the committee voted to pause the organization’s work with middle and high school students until administrators could investigate the connection.
Superintendent Jake Langlais said LaGrange attended a May 16 play the group hosted at the school, which was open to the public after school but there is no evidence he was in direct contact with students through the organization.
Maine Inside Out is a nonprofit founded in 2008 to work with juveniles at Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland, according to its website. The youth at Long Creek shared theater projects they created through the group’s workshops. Since then, people from the group’s incarcerated youth program returning home to Lewiston, Portland, Biddeford and Waterville collaborate with it on community projects.
The group uses theater for social change, co-founder Chiara Liberatore said at Monday’s meeting. It brings together groups of people to share their stories. It uses a “theater of the oppressed technique” to help people create an original play, which is then shared with an audience to bring about conversation on topics that need to be discussed as a community.
It has been working with community groups in Lewiston since 2015, organization member Noah Bragg said at the meeting. The group was approached by Lewiston Middle School officials to offer workshops in 2022. Since then, it has created six plays working with groups of about 12 middle school students and performed for the public. Some of those students have since moved to the high school.
Up to 40 eighth grade and ninth grade students have completed one to three sessions with the group to create and perform plays, and participated in community conversations with audiences of their peers, families and teachers about those plays, he said.
Students who participate in the group’s sessions tend to have fewer fights and bad behaviors in the school, he said.
The group has a good track record for safety in its programs and efforts in areas across the state because of practices and protocols it has in place, he said. Some of the group members were previously incarcerated but the group has a process to vet whoever it invites to performances. That includes checking in with people it invites, which has resulted in it turning away some people at times. Whenever the group gathers it is intentional and there are safety protocols in place.
Though the group does not conduct background checks on it members because part of its mission is to give previously incarcerated individuals certain opportunities, it does have an intensive hiring process that considers people’s participation and engagement in the group’s work over a number of years, he said.
Langlais spoke positively of the group’s work.
“I don’t know if you all have done theater or putting 12- and 13-year-olds on a stage to try to get them to perform a something, so the work they do is pretty impressive,” he said.
The committee considered approving wording in an agreement drafted by administrators outlining expectations between the group and the committee, along with more transparency with parents that some of the group’s members were previously incarcerated.
Many committee members thought the agreement needed more work and suggested it hold off voting on the document until it could be further edited.
There has been wording added to the permission slip allowing students to participate in workshops informing parents that some group members were previously incarcerated. There is also a section added to the new Memorandum of Understanding between the two parties requiring that Maine Inside Out adhere to certain safety measures and school expectations, along with other requirements.
However, there was little discussion about the actual draft agreement during the meeting, instead most members talked about their support or opposition for the group working within schools.
Ward 2 committee member Janet Beaudoin said the issue comes down to transparency with parents and safety. School staff and committee members must go through a vetting process, in which background checks and fingerprinting is required. She asked Langlais what would disqualify someone from working with students in school.
The School Department does its own background checks for staff and volunteers, along with background checks and fingerprinting done for teachers at the state level, Langlais said. The superintendent has a lot of discretion about who is deemed fit to volunteer and who is not.
People with violent offenses against children on their criminal record are not approved to be volunteers, he said. But people who were convicted of nonviolent offenses a decade or more ago can be approved, along with people who have had previous criminal charges dropped. In many cases, he will meet with a prospective volunteer to judge their character.
Beaudoin said she still felt uncomfortable with the organization working with Lewiston students during school hours.
“I’m a parent of kids inside the schools and I didn’t know this was going on when my kids were there,” she said. “And so the transparency piece for me is huge and I just really feel like this is a great program but I don’t think it should be happening during school hours in Lewiston public schools.”
Ward 6 committee member Meghan Hird said she appreciates the work the group does but she wanted to know more about what it is going to do differently to quell safety concerns. “I don’t know what’s changed or what’s going to change.”
Ward 4 committee member Tanya Whitlow said her concern is that people invited to the public performances might have a “colorful past” and asked if there was a way that those people do not get invited to performances, though she understands they are still allowed to go on their own discretion because the performances are a public event. She wondered if that would alleviate liability for the school.
“They can come if they want but we’re not going to be aggressively inviting them into the school because you can’t just close down the school,” she said.
Council representative Linda Scott asked if the group has a space big enough to host the shows itself.
Co-Executive Director Bruce King said that though the group’s space is not big enough to host student performances, there are a number of organizations in Lewiston that would host them. Performing at the middle school is preferred because students attend school there and it is where they can perform for their families and peers, he said.
Scott said she understands the fear from the situation but any other public performance put on by school clubs could be attended by a student’s family member who might commit a violent crime the next day. Short of putting students in a “bubble,” school officials cannot completely control who attends public performances, she said.
“We cannot vet those people for everything,” she said. “So, I think that that’s part of what we have to consider when we’re looking at this… How do we stop all of that from happening? We can’t.”
Sometimes the School Department must be creative in the ways it helps students in adverse situations, including getting help from community groups like Mane Inside Out, and if students can get meaningful guidance from groups of the like then it is a benefit.
Committee Chairman and member at large Megan Parks reiterated that LaGrange was not directly involved with students through this organization. She said many local organizations use the school’s auditorium to host performances outside of school hours and the people attending those events are not vetted.
“I think it’s important to reiterate that the individual that we’re concerned about is not in the schools during the school day and is not interacting with our students directly,” she said.
Beaudoin said Maine Inside Out invited LaGrange to the performance and the School Committee must look out for the safety of all students.
Parks pointed out that LaGrange had not been accused of a violent crime.
“It wasn’t like they said ‘hey, you’re a murderer come in and hang out with these kids.’ It was something that happened after the fact so there’s no way of predicting — anyone that we invite in, anyone in this room could go out and murder someone tomorrow and we have no way of predicting that,” Parks said.
Ward 1 committee member and Vice Chairman Bruce Damon said he opposes the group working in schools and does not feel the organization should be working with students during the school day. He said if the group is going to be involved with Lewiston students it should be considered extracurricular.
Damon also said none of the group’s work should be done inside the school building, other than the performance itself. The committee needs to ensure that it is not creating an opportunity in which students could be “groomed.”
“We need to make sure that we’re not providing the venue and the opportunity for that … this thing just doesn’t belong in the Lewiston schools,” he said.
Ward 5 council member Ashley Medina disagreed with the idea that allowing the group into the school could result in grooming. She said she knows of a student who participated in one of the group’s workshops and came out with changed behavior.
“If we’re going to judge people for doing things in the past that got them in trouble, guess what, then judge me too because I did things that weren’t so great too when I was young,” she said. “But guess what, I grew up and I learned. That’s why I’m in this position to try to make a difference with my voice and my lived experience and those of the people who are around me.”
Because the issue was tabled, members of the public could not comment.
Parks expressed interest in putting the issue back on the table and allowing public comment.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
