School Consolidation (Bangor, Scarborough, Calais: transporting, big house, school district)

[Maine Writer]

Some background - I'm chairman of our school board. This is a town of 66 residents. Being CoB is not political in spite of being an elected position. Approximately 20 of us sit at town meeting looking at each other hoping someone else is nominated for positions. When the same people do everything year after year we hope someone else will step up and pitch in. My husband stepped down from CoB of school board to become our first selectman. Someone had to do it and nobody else wanted it so he didn't say no when he was nominated. Someone had to take the balance of his term. He had one year of a three year term left. I took it and have since been "re-elected." I'm paid a whopping $250 a year. The other two members are paid $10 a year. I do the work.

Small town politics in Maine - go to town meeting if you don't want a position. Our town clerk and tax collector weren't there when they were voted in. They did know in advance though.

Each town has the opportunity to have three members on the unit's consolidation committee. One person each from school board, government and a town resident are encouraged. I'm the school board, Steve's the government and nobody in town wants to be involved. It's the two of us. I'm on the governance committee and he's on finance. I missed the first meeting because I was sick. We went to one meeting in October and three in November. We haven't yet figured out how voting's going to work in our unit. It's complicated.

We're all volunteers. Most people are not reimbursed for their gas money. We plan our work schedules around these meetings. Family time is given up. You can bet the governor isn't losing money over his pet issue.

I am NOT complaining. This is the way it is and we volunteered for for the work.

Originally Posted by Maine Writer
This makes it sound like consolidation is about teaming "good" academic schools with "under-performing" academic schools. Consolidation is about merging administration and offices - fewer superintendents, ...

Consolidation has nothing to do with academics and students and everything to do with money.

Originally Posted by forest beekeeper

That is exactly my understanding of the consolidation.

If losing an administrator causes a teacher in a classroom to drop in performance; it would be a far flung consequence.

There will be a lot of consequences. Administration is going to be stretched thin. Using this unit as an example: One consequence the four supers attending our meetings talk about often is how one person is going to cover 20 towns. They make themselves available to town meetings, they attention school board meetings and many other meetings. They'll have people working for and with them but gees, how does one person keep track of administration for 20 towns. Even if that one person isn't at every meeting he or she is still going to be brought up to speed.

Another consequence is distance. Kids from Vanceboro could conceivably travel 50 miles to the regional high school. They'll be probably be catching a bus to Topsfield very early in the morning. It will take them to Princeton where they'll change buses to go to the new regional high school. My daughter makes one bus change now. Then they'll have to go back home again. They'll spend a full school day's time on the bus every week.

What happens to rural kids who want to be involved in extra curricular activities? As it is today, my daughter will be home at 3:20 pm. She's on the JV basketball team and has a game in Calais at 5:30. She'll grab her stuff and we'll be on the road at 3:30 to get her to the bus at 4 pm. There isn't a late bus out here and she's certainly not hanging around for 90 minutes because we two of those mean parents who want to know the who, where, what and when of our kid's life. Sometimes she can go to Steve's office but today it's not going to work out. He won't be there. We live 20 miles from the high school. I'll drop her off at the high school at 4 pm and run errands, and then go to Calais HS before the game starts. If we lived 50 miles from a regional high school she couldn't be involved in anything after school. It's too far to drive. It's too costly. Gas is $3.25 today. No chorus, no band, no sports, no Envirothon, math team, Academic Decathalon, drama club, year book, peer helpers - nothing because we just can't do 50 miles one way. Some families are going to be faced with this situation. Some kids are going to miss out on a lot of the high school experience. Colleges do look at extra curic's.

Teachers who have been teaching for a very long time are going to have their salaries capped. It won't matter how well they do their job. Until everyone else in their category catches up they won't receive a raise. People are going to lose their jobs. Units will be responsible for hiring teachers for all schools. Individual school boards will lose their say.

There are a lot of consequences to this mess. The few things I've listed are some of what I see on the governance committee. I'm not involved in the finance, transitions or communication committees.

Sure, we could reduce the state's education budget but this isn't the best way. We shouldn't be compromising our children so that the governor can leave office with a budget that looks better on paper.

[mollysmiles]

Very well said Maine Writer. We need to express to everyone who will listen that our children will suffer. Unfortunately, the facts are not getting out there. People who I talk to aren't aware of what is eventually going to happen. I hear comments like "well, the administration doesn't need to be this big" and when I mention the eventual consolidation of schools they look at me and say "that's not what this is about". Even my step son who teaches in Scarborough was not aware that this is the plan....I tried to tell him, but I don't think he believed me at all. In reality, it's not going to effect him at all. He's not "rural".

[Maine Writer]

This could go on for years. The first part is redesigning the units' administrations. Once that's done the work of consolidating schools starts. In our unit alone we have kids in three high schools - Woodland, Calais and Eastport. Where do we put the new high school? Which towns are going to go to which elementary school building? And how to we do manage the elementary schools without taking away the right of choice from towns without schools of their own. It's overwhelming.

These meetings are open to the public. Our unit starts the meeting together. We break up into three committees, meet and come back together with reports from each committee. We address issues and questions, sometimes someone gets rowdy and yells, confirm the date, time and place for the next meeting and walk out shaking our heads. The public is able to go to any of the committee meetings they'd like. Nobody has been denied the right to speak. The general public does not have the right to vote on committee issues though.

One more thing before I get myself back to work - each committee (finance, governance and transitions) does its own work but then everyone with a vote votes on accepting or rejecting each committee's work. One committee could do an excellent job because they understand their big picture and still be rejected because the rest of us don't see that big picture. Then we start again.

<walking away, shaking my head and being very grateful that my youngest is almost out of school>

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Maine Writer, You have the only opportunity ever to get some control over this disaster. Each town has 3 votes. If you get a coalition of the smaller towns together you can control the outcome. Once this is passed the big towns won't care what Talmadge, Waite, Codyville or Brookton thinks. Make sure you have all three slots filled on your local consolidation committee. Over here in our rural district we have a pretty good coalition which will vote down any proposal that harms us. Remember, you can keep your present status until November 8, 2008. That's when the public gets to vote. Maybe we can elect a legislature that will overturn this mess.

At least you can vote. The other 52% of Maine has no vote. They are governed by LURC.

This isn't about the number of superintendents. It isn't about schools. It isn't about kids or education. It's about rural cleansing.

[Valley Living]

I also live in a small town. Van Buren, population approx 2500. Our school board and town officials made the Bangor Daily last week for being one of the only schools refusing to consolodate. Maine Writer, if you would like some contacts I can give you some through private messages. Our town is so upset about this flawed law that we would consider becoming a tuition based private school before giving up our local control.

[Maine Writer]

Thanks. I am interested. We don't have a school in town so we have to tuition students but I'm still very interested. There's talk of doing this in a nearby town. I think they could make it work. Since we don't have a school we do tuition and we do allow private schools. One of our students is in a private high school. We've discussed this at meetings. The thought right now is that our unit will continue to pay $X tuition to a school outside our unit. If the tuition to that school is more the town or parents would make up the difference.

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Maine Writer, You have the only opportunity ever to get some control over this disaster. Each town has 3 votes. If you get a coalition of the smaller towns together you can control the outcome. Once this is passed the big towns won't care what Talmadge, Waite, Codyville or Brookton thinks.

That's my biggest concern in the whole thing. Ideally, I'd love to see every town that wants a say to have it. We love our kids as much and we're just as concerned as bigger towns are about theirs. Realistically, we can't get 20 towns together for a unit meeting. I couldn't go to our Union meeting. We probably couldn't have enough unit members in attendance for a quorum if we had to depend on twenty individuals. Life happens. Things come up. If all 20 did make it there's a slim chance that everyone will agree and that there won't be hours of discussion. Everyone wants to be heard.

Talmadge will probably have 1/7th of a vote. We will probably be put together with Vanceboro, Codyville, Topsfield, Waite, Grand Lake Stream and Princeton and share one vote. We still don't meet the town population number set for voting group but it's close.

Make sure you have all three slots filled on your local consolidation committee. Over here in our rural district we have a pretty good coalition which will vote down any proposal that harms us.

We had a citizen interested but she had to leave for six weeks. She's gone again and might be back in January. There's been one emergency after another for her. If she's able she'll join us then.

Remember, you can keep your present status until November 8, 2008. That's when the public gets to vote. Maybe we can elect a legislature that will overturn this mess.

In the beginning this was discussed quite a bit. In the last month it has been discouraged because it won't give the unit employees time to get settled into their jobs. I'm all for stalling. As much as I want to be finished with this, I'll put in the extra time.

Valley Living, I am interested. Thank you. We don't have a school in town that we can turn into a private institution. We have to tuition students but I'm still very interested. There's a little talk of doing this in a nearby town. I think they could make it work. One of our students is in a private high school. We've discussed this at meetings. The thought right now is that our unit will continue to pay a set amount of tuition to a school outside our unit. If the tuition to that school is more the town or parents would make up the difference.

[7th generation]

Stepping over a dollar to pick up a penny.
That about sums it up. Baldaci is getting short on time and long on ideas.
The basic premise for consolidating is eliminating some superintendents and saving the taxpayers money.
One of the flaws among many is the fact that the teachers union will demand equal pay for their members in the same district. The pay for teachers in SAD44 is higher then the Rangley School District, so of course the teachers in Rangley will require the same wage. So that negates the "eliminated" superintendent and will force greater travel for the "redistricted" students. What a joke John.
"Eliminate" some of your cronies before messing with our education system.
Good luck Writer and a very good post.
You couldn't pay me enough to be in your position.

You know when I "spell checked" Baldaci it wanted to change his name to "balds"...Hmmm.........coincedence............ .??

[contented]

the effort to undo this education consolidation mess is being headed up statewide by a very capable public servant out of stonington. he is chairman of the school board and a former state rep from the area.

he knows his way around augusta and while i'm not sure if he'll succeed or not, he's very capable in the public arena, in the old maine style.

[ADSLubec]

Originally Posted by 7th generation

One of the flaws among many is the fact that the teachers union will demand equal pay for their members in the same district. The pay for teachers in SAD44 is higher then the Rangley School District, so of course the teachers in Rangley will require the same wage. So that negates the "eliminated" superintendent and will force greater travel for the "redistricted" students.

Excellent point!

Before I go on here let me tell you what I do for a living. I am the Elementary Eduation Budget Analyst for the Connecticut Legislature and have been for nearly 23 years. I am the person in Connecticut that would have determined the fiscal impact of this type of legislation in Connecticut.

In any school district consolidation, no matter the number of schools consolidating, the first assumption should be that salaries will rise to the level of the highest paid district. It may not happen all at once but once it is time to renegotiate contracts you can count on it. This alone could negate any potential administrative savings depending on the salary differentials of the consolidating districts.

The second assumption should be that transportation costs will rise. I can see this being a major impact in a rural county. Just imagine transporting kids from Lubec to say Machias.

I have not looked at the official fiscal impact statement developed for this legislation but I suspect it is flawed.

Hope a new legislature can repeal what appears to me to be a poor piece of legislation inMaine.

Alan

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Many districts hope to hold out until November 8, 2008 when we hope to elect a new legislature thyat will clean up this mess. All House members run every two years. It's time for a big house cleaning. Maine Writer has a good representative who voted against this outrage. We need to reelect him and many like him.