Brunswick voters selected Katie Stansky for an at-large seat on the school department board and approved a $57.7 million school budget.

Stanksy received 2,988 votes to opponent Shaun Hogan’s 567 votes.

The school budget was approved 2,923-652. Voters also decided 2,816-634 to continue the school budget referendum process for another three years.

Hogan and Stansky competed for one of two at-large positions, left vacant after the resignation of former board member Abigail Abbott, who beat Hogan for the same post in November.

In interviews with The Times Record in May, Stansky said she hoped to continue the trajectory of the school board and the superintendent’s strategic plan, while Hogan planned to cut funding and take aim at diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Stansky works in public health and has two kids in Brunswick schools.

She told the The Times Record the board must protect schools as safe, welcoming and equitable spaces; evolve the Brunswick curriculum to match the needs of students; and make “sustainable investments, with an eye on being financially responsible.”

“The direction that exists today, as laid out by the superintendent and the school board in the strategic plan, is one that’s strong,” Stansky said.

Hogan, a driving instructor, Navy veteran and former substitute teacher, has been vocal about cutting spending, and his campaign signs around Brunswick decry the inclusion of transgender athletes in girls’ sports.

Stansky pushed back on Hogan’s comments on DEI and transgender athletes, saying in May that it is the board’s “duty and responsibility to protect and support all students regardless of who they are” and adding that she does not support bringing kids’ identities into political campaigns.

The school budget enacted for the upcoming fiscal year reflects a roughly 5.26% increase from the previous year and will result in an estimated 1.8% tax rate increase. As in previous years, the town’s highest expenditure is education, comprising more than half of its nearly $102 million budget.