Copyright Bangor Daily News
Two parents with teaching backgrounds won seats on Bangor’s School Committee in Tuesday’s election. Mallory Cook was the most popular candidate with 3,817 votes, and Benjamin Speed earned a committee seat with 3,526 votes. Both winning candidates were endorsed by the progressive Brewer-based nonprofit Food AND Medicine. Laura Otis garnered the third-most votes with 2,036, and Frank Casella received 1,972. None of the four candidates had held elected office before. Winning candidates Cook and Speed will both serve three-year terms, replacing outgoing School Committee members Marwa Hassanien and Imke Jandreau. The new School Committee members will be sworn in Monday, Nov. 10, at 9 a.m. Cook, who worked as a teacher for 10 years before becoming the director of training and early educator engagement at the Maine Education Association, told the Bangor Daily News she decided to run for School Committee to represent educator voices. Cook, 37, has lived in Bangor for nine years. She is a Democrat, lives in the Fairmount neighborhood and has a child in first grade in the Bangor school system. Prior to the election, Cook named adding more professional development opportunities for staff, prioritizing students’ social and emotional needs while maintaining a high standard of academic excellence and bringing both sides of the city together to make a more cohesive school community as priorities. She also noted demographic shifts in Bangor in the last 10 years, saying training to help educators support growing populations of homeless, multilingual and disabled students would strengthen students’ feelings of safety and belonging in the school system. Cook has also spoken about being targeted over a book display created by students in Hermon High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance when she served as their advisor. Speed previously told the BDN he decided to run for School Committee because of his passion for the arts and career and technical education. “I feel really excited to serve the Bangor school department, the teachers and students of Bangor, the parents,” Speed said Tuesday night. He added that it was a fun experience running his campaign and getting to know all of the other candidates “as candidates and folks that care about the students of Bangor.” Speed, 45, worked for 14 years teaching multimedia design at Hancock County Technical Center in Ellsworth before moving to Bangor eight years ago. He is a Democrat, resides in Little City and has a child who attends Bangor High School. He now works in the public relations department at Northern Light Health and holds an adjunct teaching position at Husson University’s communications school. Speed said his background in public relations could help strengthen communication with families, improve the public’s perception of Bangor schools and attract more families to the school district. Speed also said he wants the school department to continue working to bring the entire school community together and make sure “that we are living up to our principles of providing access and opportunities and places to belong at all schools.” He added that his own experience dealing with food and housing insecurity when he was growing up made learning in school difficult and he wants the School Committee to work with the City Council and community organizations to invest in social services for families that are struggling.
