Originally published in Saco Bay News August 24, 2024

A Campus Set Apart

George Orwell once wrote “Journalism is printing what somebody else doesn’t want printed. Everything else is public relations.”

Since I have worked as both a journalist and as a public relations professional, I can tell you that quotation from Orwell often rings quite true, especially in a small town where some things are considered off-limits for pesky reporters.

Since this is a column about the city of Saco and Thornton Academy, and since I graduated from T.A., I lifted the title for this column from my senior year yearbook: “A Campus Set Apart.”

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? A Campus Set Apart. A distinguished honor, a trumpeting of high achievement.

But what I want to know is this: A campus set apart from what, exactly?

Let’s pause here for a moment for some very necessary disclosure: I graduated from Thornton Academy in 1982. My sister also graduated from T.A., as did my father and both of my aunts. In fact, my grandfather taught there briefly before teaching at Biddeford High School.

So, I know a little bit about Thornton Academy, its reputation and its history.

More disclosure, since we’re also talking about the city of Saco: My youngest step sister, Jodi MacPhail also graduated from Thornton and is today the mayor of Saco.

A Social Media Firestorm

Last week, just a day before Laura and I were set to leave for our annual trip to Moosehead Lake, I published what I thought was a rather innocuous news story regarding the ongoing contract negotiations between Saco and Thornton.

Although Thornton Academy is a private school, it has also served as Saco’s default high school for nearly 200 years. That’s quite a history.

But despite this long-standing relationship between the city and Thornton, and the fact that these negotiations happen every few years, there seems to be a fair amount of friction between the two parties.

I posted the story on the Biddeford-Saco Community Facebook page on Wednesday morning. Within just a couple of hours, the accusations and fervent defense of one side’s position went almost off the rails.

That Facebook post reached more than 2,000 viewers within the first 24 hours, and it generated more than 117 comments.

I was stunned by the commentary, the bulk of which was aimed at defending Thornton Academy and criticizing the city’s negotiating team.

Honestly, I expected the reverse. As someone who tracks local issues very closely, I wrongly assumed that Saco taxpayers would naturally align closer to the city’s negotiating position.

Then again, the city of Saco does not employ a public relations professional, but Thornton Academy does. And it appears to be money well spent.

Maybe I’m a cynic, but it appeared that Thornton Academy had rallied their troops and circled their wagons even before the story was published. Many of the commenters didn’t disclose their own connections to the private school, including teachers and other employees.

Commentary in support of Thornton Academy pummeled the opposition by a margin of close to 9-1.

Wow, I thought. I better be careful about what I write about Thornton, especially if I have the temerity to tackle some of the school’s beloved mythology.

 I was born in a small town

Sometimes it can be weird: being a reporter in a small town. Reporters are supposed to be objective and unbiased. Sometimes, it’s a bit tougher to accomplish those high ideals of journalism than it looks, especially when you bump into the people you write about at the grocery store or if your kids play on the same Little League team.

Simply questioning Thornton Academy or sympathizing with the city’s negotiating team feels almost treasonous to me. I am an alum, after all.

But unlike almost all of my 1982 classmates, I have a rather unique view of Thornton Academy.

It’s no secret that I was experiencing some difficulties during my teenage years. When things got too far out of control, my mother sent me to live with my uncle in West Peru. That transition happened just a few weeks into my sophomore year at Thornton.

Kids from the town of Peru were sent to Rumford High School, now Mountain Valley High School. I finished my sophomore year and then attended my entire junior year in Rumford.

But I begged my mother to let me return to Thornton so that I could graduate with all my “friends” from Saco before heading off to basic training in the U.S. Air Force.

In retrospect, I should have stayed at Rumford. I never really fit in at either Thornton or Rumford. It may surprise you – and I now find it quite ironic – that many kids from Rumford looked down their noses at kids from Peru. Imagine a snobby kid from Rumford. A contradiction of terms.

At least the undercurrents of elitism at Thornton were based on some measure of reality. But kids are kids, no matter where they go to school. Still, I was able to compare two high schools as a student of both.

Oh, the places you’ll go

The defense of Thornton on social media followed two very basic themes. 1.) Thornton Academy is a top-notch school, and 2.) Saco should just be grateful, stop asking questions and shut up. Thornton Academy, after all, is a private school. They answer to no one except their own self-appointed Board of Trustees, a virtual who’s who in Saco’s power structure.

But here’s one of the main rubbing points in this current negotiation: Saco representatives want just a bit of accountability and transparency from Thornton, including a proposal to have a city representative appointed as a non-voting member to the Board of Trustees.

Sounds reasonable, right?

Yeah, not so much. It was as if the city asked Thornton to change its name to Saco High School.

Make no mistake. The city of Saco is damned fortunate to have Thornton Academy as the primary option for all its public high school students.

But it should also be noted that Thornton Academy is also quite fortunate to have such a close relationship to the city, a steady, reliable and predictable source of income.

Many private schools struggle when the economy disrupts the ability of parents to pay private tuition costs. Thornton has a healthy buffer from those recession and inflationary woes: a buffer to the tune of more than $17 million per year in tuition costs from Saco taxpayers.

Furthermore, even though Thornton Academy can charge prime market tuition for its private students, it is still a non-profit entity and does not pay any property taxes on its acres and acres of manicured lawns and the several brick buildings that make up its campus; a campus set apart.

 Let’s make a deal

From all accounts, the ongoing negotiations between Saco and Thornton Academy are based upon something that both sides agree upon. Both Thornton and Saco ultimately want what is best for Saco kids.

In any negotiating situation, both sides have to come to the table in good faith. Both sides have to give a little and both sides have to get a little. Otherwise, it’s not negotiating. It’s blackmail.

But let’s remember something for all of the people bragging about the success of their kids who went to Thornton and later got into very good colleges and universities: not every kid is college bound.

In fact, several Thornton Academy students take vocational classes at the Biddeford Regional Center of Technology.

However, according to Saco City Attorney Tim Murphy (who also serves on Thornton’s Board of Trustees), use of the word ‘Biddeford” anywhere on Thornton’s campus is a felony offense that carries a minimum two-year prison term in the town of Dayton.

Relax, Tim Murphy never really said that.

All kidding aside, some Saco school kids also require special-ed services. Not every kid is college bound. Saco has a responsibility to advocate for ALL of its students, not just the college-bound students or the outstanding athletes.

Eight of the 11 private high schools in Maine provide all their students with free lunch, consistent with a new state law that requires all public schools to offer free lunch. Thornton is one of the three private schools that does not offer that option. Why?

Although private schools like Thornton are exempt from the new law, it creates a dividing line between the haves and the have nots. Remember high school? Now imagine being one of just a few kids who has to ask for a free lunch.

To their credit, Thornton has a policy to expand free lunch for any student within 260 percent of the federal poverty rate, but it still forces students and their parents to go through the humiliation of asking for financial help.

The city of Saco is not looking to “take over” a private high school with an exemplary reputation, but if I’m going to fork over $17 million for something you can bet your sweet ass that I’m going to want something in return.

For comparison purposes, the city of Biddeford has a contract with a private firm that handles repair, maintenance and operations of all its photocopiers. That annual contract is roughly $150,000 a year and includes the school department.

Biddeford’s contract with that private firm has more transparency and accountability for photocopiers than Saco has for all of its high school students.

If Thornton doesn’t want public accountability, then maybe it should stop taking public funds. Many private companies across the country have government contracts, but they also have to follow certain rules including accountability and transparency.

Bath Iron Works strikes me as an exceptional shipyard, but when the Senate Appropriations Committee comes sniffing around for accountability and transparency regarding federal contracts, you can bet that BIW doesn’t tell Sen. Angus King to go pound sand.

Thornton Academy: Myth, Legend or Reality?

On a final note, while Thornton certainly has the prettiest high school campus in southern Maine, how does it stack up against other high schools when it comes to things other than landscaping?

As I said previously, I went to Thornton and Rumford High School. I would be hard-pressed to come up with any objective measure of which school was better.

I was one of those college-prep kids. In my sophomore year at Rumford High School, we were studying the works of Marcus Aurelius – in Latin. English teacher Richard Mullins – one of my favorite high school teachers – required us to do a deep-dive into Orwell’s Animal Farm, requiring essays and research to critique that work’s inspiration: the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

Thornton also had amazing and dedicated faculty who pushed us hard. One of my favorites was Norman Trottier, who adamantly refused to let me drop French IV during my senior year so that I could just coast toward basic training.

Phil Curtis was such a passionate and dedicated teacher at Thornton. He was so incredibly patient and kind towards me, even though I barely understood the mathematical foundation of two-plus-two.

There were so many other fine teachers at both Rumford and Thornton. How do you objectively measure which school is better? You really can’t.

Public schools in Maine are required by law to publicly post their MEA (Maine Educational Assessment) scores.  Not Thornton.

So how do Saco taxpayers really know what they’re getting for their $17 million per year? Do taxpayers just have to blindly accept what the cheerleaders are screaming on the sidelines?

Maybe, but it would appear that there is also more than landscaping that “sets Thornton apart.” They also have a pretty good public relations department.

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