School Consolidation (Augusta: buy, high schools, subsidized)

[maine4.us]

Just a wild guess, but is it a mountain? Possibly with iron deposits? We used to point our TV antenna toward a big hill and got a great reflected signal. Stronger than the primary!

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

94.9 FM "The Mountain" out of Millinocket. If Musquash is not in the way you can probably get it.

(Now everybody is going to wonder what or who Musquash is. We'll keep em guessing.)

Thanks to Musquash I'm not on dial up. It has my signal and a geocache I need to find in the spring.

I agree - there are things that can be streamlined to save money. Combining administration is a good idea but let's be realistic. Vanceboro to Eastport, 20 towns, is too much. I don't think rurality was taken into consideration when the number of pupils per unit was established. There's a huge discrepancy between 15,000 and 18,000 students per city (these cities are not consolidating) and rural Maine's stretch between towns to reach fewer than 2,000. Or, as much as I hate to think of it and as angry the thought makes me, rurality was taken into consideration - as in rural cleansing. I've said this before but it's worth repeating - busing kids to a high school 90 minutes away is unacceptable. Remember, school buses don't make the same one-stop trip we make from Point A to Point B. There are a lot of stops in between to pick up and drop off students. It adds time.

Consider what has to happen when a student is hurt or sick at a school that's 50 miles away. And consider the cost of gas and how much it's going cost to drive to school and bring that child home. A 100 mile trip is five gallons of gas in my vehicle. Gas is $3.30. A lot of sick kids are going to be stuck in school and that's no place for anyone who's sick to be.

Yes, save money. Combine some things. Do it without compromising kids.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Hey Zymer, N1JNN here.

[Elcarim]

Are they really talking about combining schools 50 miles apart? That's insane! What about us overly protective parents who won't put our kids on a school bus? I can't imagine!! I guess that's something we'd better check out very thoroughly before we move to a town who may not have it's own school next year. And I wonder if they've considered how the popluated areas are sure to shift if they start consolidating. It's bound to happen.

[mollysmiles]

El, it wouldn't happen as early as next year, but it doesn't hurt to stay informed It shouldn't happened at all--for a variety of reasons all ready listed here and more too

[Maine Writer]

Decisions on which schools stay open and who goes where won't be made until after the administrations are combined. We're supposed to have that work done by November but if Augusta doesn't get it in gear we won't be finishing the admin part of this soon.

[MRVphotog]

There seem to be some info missing here or maybe I'm crazy but I'm just going by what is happening in the school districts around SAD 51 where I still have one in HS.

Some schools around the state, based on performance, are designated "elite schools" and they do not have to comply if they so choose and can remain a separate school district. The funky thing is that if another abutting school district combines with them they too will not have to comply with the state edict so several schools(Greely, Freeport and Falmouth) are courting Yarmouth, an elite school district, to avoid the state ultimatum and set-up.

Also, schools will not close but administrative offices(different SADs) will be combined so people already crying that schools 50 miles apart will be combined and some will be closed seems abit premature at this point.

If your already strongly opposed to a plan that is still basically in the developement stage I don't get how you can also complain about the high cost of Maine's education system. I'm going to wait and let the process play out before I go running into the night screaming "the sky is falling".
If you feel strongly about this proposal then you should get involved, I am sure your voice/opinion/concerns will be appreciated, as it should be.

Interestingly some schools in my area went thru some consolidating a few years ago. Greely schools(SADS 51) is a combination of Cumberland and North Yarmouth. Gray/New Gloucester is, you guessed it, Gray and New Gloucester and even tho some of the kids in New Gloucester have a 12 mile bus trip the parents I know like it.

Vermont in the late 60's consolidated many of the HS's around the state, some still haven't been locally named like U-32 in East Montpelier. Closed alot of small HS's and built big modern ones in a central location.

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by MRVphotog

There seem to be some info missing here or maybe I'm crazy but I'm just going by what is happening in the school districts around SAD 51 where I still have one in HS.

You are missing information.

Some schools around the state, based on performance, are designated "elite schools" and they do not have to comply if they so choose and can remain a separate school district. The funky thing is that if another abutting school district combines with them they too will not have to comply with the state edict so several schools(Greely, Freeport and Falmouth) are courting Yarmouth, an elite school district, to avoid the state ultimatum and set-up.

Student population inside a unit is a key factor in all of this. If Greely, Freeport and Falmouth join Yarmouth what will the total student population in that unit be? Units are based on numbers. If those three schools join Yarmouth and they reach the minimum student number or are close enough they will have done what the state is trying to achieve.

Have you compared the student population, the area included in what will be that unit and the rest of the information with any of the rural units?

Also, schools will not close but administrative offices(different SADs) will be combined so people already crying that schools 50 miles apart will be combined and some will be closed seems abit premature at this point.

If this goes through schools are going to close the way this is all written now. We don't eliminate enough dollars to reach the budget goal while keeping all of the schools open. That's too many heating bills, too many insurances, retirement plans, too many salaries, etc. I didn't pull 50 miles out of a hat. What do you have to back up your claim that I'm being premature? You can get out the map and count the miles from Vanceboro to Woodland and Calais if you need more than my word. Those are the two most likely towns for a unit high school. Looking at the Gazetteer, Vanceboro is in Map 46. Woodland and Calais are in 36. The unit continues out to Eastport, Map 27.

If your already strongly opposed to a plan that is still basically in the developement stage I don't get how you can also complain about the high cost of Maine's education system. I'm going to wait and let the process play out before I go running into the night screaming "the sky is falling".

It was not in the development plan when this we started working in October. It's been thrown back to Augusta to figure out all their mistakes. We started with binders full of laws, instructions, explanations and such. We add more each meeting. How we were to get from the beginning to Consolidation wasn't in development. The plan was made and we were there to carry it out.

If you don't get how I can complain about excessive expenses and not agree that this isn't being done properly from what I've said in this conversation I can't help it. It's more than I'm willing to begin to explain again. There are too many expenses. There are better ways to reduce expenses without compromising children.

If you feel strongly about this proposal then you should get involved, I am sure your voice/opinion/concerns will be appreciated, as it should be.

I am. Are you?

Interestingly some schools in my area went thru some consolidating a few years ago. Greely schools(SADS 51) is a combination of Cumberland and North Yarmouth. Gray/New Gloucester is, you guessed it, Gray and New Gloucester and even tho some of the kids in New Gloucester have a 12 mile bus trip the parents I know like it.

Of course they like it. Twelve miles is a blink of an eye. I doubt many have any idea what it's like to put your four and five year olds on a bus to drive 20, possibly 35 miles to school. I'm not pulling those numbers out of a hat either.

Vermont in the late 60's consolidated many of the HS's around the state, some still haven't been locally named like U-32 in East Montpelier. Closed alot of small HS's and built big modern ones in a central location.

How far are students traveling to get to their schools? A lot of the high school experience, which is far more than what goes in in a classroom, is related to how far parents and students have to travel.

[maine4.us]

Amen Maine Writer. The only way to save a SIGNIFICANT amount of money is to close schools and bus to a single location. You can cut corners by combining administrations, but the bottom line is to close schools. Yes, it is more costly to keep open a number of smaller schools rather than a few large ones. School Unit 104 has only 500+ students K-12. High school students are already bused up to 20 miles. The only way to save money in this unit would be to close the preK-8 schools and build a single school to house the 400 displaced students. We can't forget the cost of anywhere from $8-12 M for the new preK-8 school. The requirements of the state have ballooned the cost of maintaining small rural schools. Now they want to do away with them to save money. I would definitely agree a "rural cleansing" (to quote NMLM) is about to take place. You rip the heart out of a community when you close its school. Rural Mainers, take note!

[MRVphotog]

Thanks for the info....like I posted It's not really a strong issue for me. i'm just an interested observer at this point. Seems that there are lots of good people already working on this so I will simply let the developement process work out. Thanks for your time and energy.