Brian M. Dell’Olio
64 Scottow Hill Road
Education: 2001 Scarborough High School; 2005 B.A., Politics, Marymount University
Occupation: Investment/Security Analyst & Advisor working with individuals and families at North Atlantic Securities, L.L.C., and Michael J. Dell’Olio & Associates, L.L.C.
Age: 25
Party Affiliation: Democrat
Political experience: Scarborough Cable Television Committee, one year as Chairman; Member, Scarborough Board of Education’s Citizens Finance Advisory Council; Co-Chair, 350th SHS Reunion Committee; Member, 350th Celebration Committee.
Civic associations: Kiwanis Club
Statement about candidacy: I am running because I want to give back to the Scarborough schools as they have given to me. I would like to see students have more opportunities than I did when I was there and get them ready for life. I am someone who seeks input from anyone who wants to give it and then works to balance all the interests and needs of everyone involved so that the outcome will service the community best.


John Cole
40 Arbor View Lane
Education: BS in Business Administration, USM; University of Hartford (attended 80 percent complete) Post Graduate MIS Manufacturing systems; Univ. of New England MIS Web Development
Occupation: UNUM Corp Information Technology
Age: 55
Party Affiliation: Republican
Political experience: None
Civic Association: Scarborough Conservation Commission; Scarborough School Sports Done Right Committee; Scarborough supporter for Wrestling Boosters and wrestling program; Maine Dental Hygienists Association (MDHA); Maine Amateur Wrestling Alliance (MAWA); Maine Interscholastic Wrestling Officials Association (MIWOA); New England Intercollegiate Wrestling Officials Association (NEIWOA); Maine Games.
Statement about candidacy: I’m excited to be part of the process with a great staff of teachers, administrators, students and parents and other folks energized to help our youth on their mission for academic excellence and athletic achievements. I also have a special place for those students who decide to enter the workforce and military after high school and we must ensure they have all the basic skills and support they’ll need to be productive and can contribute to our community and finally encourage them to pursue higher education when the time is right for them.


Samuel J Cofone
184 Route 1
Education: Attended Andover College, Southern Maine Community College, graduate Maine Criminal Justice Academy.
Occupation: Patrol Deputy Sheriff Cumberland County
Age: 44
Party Affiliation: Republican
Political experience: Past Chief Steward for Teamsters Local #340 for the patrol division of the sheriff’s office.
Civic associations: Football, cheering and wrestling boosters
Statement about candidacy: I consider myself the common sense candidate. I am just a regular parent that is concerned by the way I see the school department run sometimes. I don’t believe that throwing more money at a problem fixes it. I do believe that when you say something you stand behind it. I will take my practical experience and put it to work for you and our children. I believe that the school department should reflect the wants and wishes of the community.


Tax-reform priorities:
Samuel Cofone: The state needs to control spending in Augusta. I am a fiscal conservative.
John Cole: Support property tax relief; meet state and federal budget mandates; inventory our current spending and remove duplication and any fluff in the budget and advocate to our state and federal representatives for more active and realistic reform.
Brian Dell’Olio: I don’t think the Board of Education has a whole lot of authority on tax reform; however, Scarborough has one of the lowest tax rates in the area and has been able to keep that due to rising property valuation. Given a declining market, valuation will begin to fall, which means we may need to look at raising our tax rate to keep the same level of income. If we find ourselves in that situation, we will need to proceed with caution.
Curriculum development:
Cole: Ensure math and English skills are achieved and measure the results from grade K to 12 and trend the patterns year-to-year.
Dell’Olio:  Scarborough does an excellent job of preparing its students for college and meeting a wide range of development needs. I would like to continue to see technology grow. When touring the middle school, I saw students using their laptops – they were engaged in learning, having fun – it was great. I would like to see this continued into other grades. Also, I would like to see more continuity to the curriculum.
Cofone: I believe the school department is doing a good job here.
District consolidation law:
Dell’Olio: Fortunately, the impact on Scarborough will be minimal. We will now be working with: required budget reductions of 5-10 percent in areas like administration, special education and transportation, as well as public approval of the budget’s bottom line. This will require us to look hard at our administrative/central office staff, special education, and transportation departments and get creative – thinking outside of the box – to determine where we can achieve these savings. It can be done, it’s just going to require some hard work and hard decisions that I am prepared to help make. Now that all citizens will be actively involved in determining the budget’s bottom line it will require us to involve them in the budget process even more. Budget workshops which have been held in the Superintendent’s conference room should now be held in the council chambers with more publicity so that public will be more aware of those meetings and can attend to learn directly from district departments.
Cole: I support consolidation and the goals of reducing property tax burdens; make sure we partner with neighbor communities to learn from their activities and be engaged in the process even though we’re a stand-alone town.
Cofone: I am for it, but am glad that Scarborough did not have to consolidate.
Special education:
Cole: Ensure we meet state and federal mandates; eliminate duplication and inventory the students to measure if they are getting what they need; support teachers to ensure they do not get burned out and can offer their best skills in providing the educational experience to our youth.
Dell’Olio: We need to look at working with some other districts in the area to specialize in one service while they specialize in the other. Students in the area that need our service can come to us and students who need their service can go to them. That way we don’t have four different specialists on our payroll who only work with 1 or 2 students. I believe that it is worth exploring further.
Infrastructure needs:
Cofone: Improvements need to be made at the Wentworth School to make it safer for the students and staff. I am against building another school at this time!
Dell’Olio: Wentworth is clearly our most urgent need and is an issue that needs to be dealt with; while the middle school is coming in at a close second. This is another situation that is going to require the board and the community to look at every option available and work together. There are a variety of options that have been discussed. One that seems to make the most sense is building one new school that houses 3-4 in one wing and 5-6 in the other. The benefits of this option are that we get students at Wentworth into a safe environment that will allow them to learn effectively, and by taking 6th grade out of the middle school, we would essentially remove that crowding issue from the table allowing us to build/renovate only one building instead of two.
Cole: Keep the intermediate school on our radar for safety and functional aspects. Can we think outside the box on solutions that serve the students, teachers, and taxpayers in developing intermediate and middle school needs? Ensure we keep all schools well maintained as a capital investment.
School spending priorities:
Dell’Olio: I would like to see technology use and programs that allow students to apply what they learn in the classroom. By doing so, this not only allows students to see that what they learn in the classroom is important – thus encouraging future learning – but it can help students determine their interests and can get students who have not been interested in school and classroom learning get actively involved in their education.
Cofone: Academics, building repairs, athletics.
Cole: Competitive salaries, good administrators, teachers and support staff are retained year-to-year and maintain our school capital investment plan for capital improvements.
School spending cuts:
Cole: Duplication, waste, unnecessary items, eliminate any budget fluff and identify it as such.
Dell’Olio: Right now, I don’t know that I see any particular area of the school budget that I could say can be eliminated. I think that as a school district we can look for ways to be more efficient in our operating. The middle school, for example, has a program where teachers sign out classroom materials and share them. When one teacher is teaching one unit, another can teach a different one and when they are done they switch. The students do the same thing with textbooks. This system is saving the school $20,000 one year. These are the kind of systems we can look for to achieve real savings.
Cofone: Administration and transportation are two areas that cuts could be made in.
Goals to accomplish
in the next term:
Dell’Olio: Start the process on some kind of school construction/renovation; encourage and increase the number of students who take advantage of professional development/internship opportunities in high school; and increase the use of technology in the classroom.
Cole: Listen and lean from all parties of our educational system and town residents; quality and accountability of our educational system; ensure adequate funding for our schools; provide financial incentives for results; measure budget planned vs. actual year-to-year with explanations of variances; build strong working relationships between teachers, administrators, parents and the board. Ensure booster groups have active involvement in the areas they can contribute. Get my fellow Baby-Boomers re-engaged in the mentorship. Active, progressive student-owned goal setting and measurement feedback process. Build a very visible flagpole to fly the American flag, do so on town owned property that can be seen from any perspective and in celebration of our 350th year as a community. Examine and where it makes sense, pilot and possibly implement new technology solutions. Access for our residents to the educational buildings and infrastructure.
Cofone: Making the school department more customer-friendly and responsive to parents concerns. Upgrade school policies by making them based on common sense for our community not what works in Augusta. I will work to see that we do not become a “Sports Done Right” charter school. It is very expensive and infringes on parents and boosters rights. Take the good stuff out of the program of which some we already do and scrap the rest of it.
Issues voters bring up most often
Cofone: People seem to be upset about building another school in the community and I agree with them. Now is not the time with school consolidation still out there.
Cole: Quality of math skills at the high school level; writing skills; accuracy of student academic achievement measurements K-12; Parent involvement; booster clubs as a resource used to enhance our schools athletics and academics; globalization and all aspects of international competition; reality check of our policies to how administration can implement these policies and remedial courses required of student ender colleges and universities.
Dell’Olio: I am hearing concerns about: the use of portable classrooms; continued spending and the priorities that go along with it; and wanting to continue great education with extra-curricular activities. I think that portable classrooms are a temporary solution to a permanent problem. We use them to solve an influx of students into the system; they can be in place fast and are less expensive than building a permanent facility. While they are not great, they can help us when we get in a bind – and the district does an excellent job maintaining them. Spending is always a difficult issue. Putting money at a problem doesn’t always make it go away.  We need to balance our wants with our needs and address what we need first. And to look for better ways to run our system, i.e., the middle school sharing program I mentioned above. When I look at issues it will be with this balance in mind. Keeping up the quality of our education in Scarborough is paramount. I want to look for ways to serve all our students who may have different interests and support them. Examples are internships, FIRST Robotics where students get the opportunity to think critically to solve a problem and then gain engineering skills to build a robot. These are opportunities to send our students into the world with one other tool.
Ways voters can differentiate you
from your opponents:
Dell’olio: 1) Strong commitment to Scarborough as a community and wanting to do what’s best for all. 2) Someone who has a wide background: went to Scarborough schools, has professional education experience, has budgetary and management experience, and someone who has served on a crises management team. 3) Ready to immediately deal with the issues in front of our community and work in a way to serve everyone.
Cole: Active participant looking for solutions to implement; “Been there, done that” with my own kids; want to see our kids well prepared when they leave our school system to take on the next challenge and be role models themselves to the next generation, that for me is the true measure of success.
Cofone: I am the only candidate running for the three-year seat that currently has children in the school system. I am the only one helps operate a family owned business in Scarborough.