Ability to Choose Which School District??? (Brunswick, Presque Isle: home, buy, school districts)

[maja]

Here's a question. If we buy a home that is in one town but just inside the town limits and bordering on another town, can we pick which town we send our kids to or do we have to send them to the town assigned to our home address??? Anybody know? TIA.

[island mermaid]

Originally Posted by maja

Here's a question. If we buy a home that is in one town but just inside the town limits and bordering on another town, can we pick which town we send our kids to or do we have to send them to the town assigned to our home address??? Anybody know? TIA.

Hi Maja,
I'm not sure about all towns but I do know that Pownal and Durham kids have the option of attending either Brunswick or Lisbon.

MT Ararat kids could have stayed at Brunswick w/ paying a tuition and obviously transportation is not included in both cases.

I guess it would depend on the district. I'd make a call to the superintendants office of your home address.
Good luck!

[kellysmith]

If you live in a town that has it's own schools or is part of a school district, you must send your children to that school...(exceptions to follow)...if you live in a town that pays tuition for all school age children to attend schools in other towns because the town has decided they would rather tuition out the school age children rather than provide a school, you will have options as to which school your children go to. In other words your town might pay town X the tuition rather than town Z if you chose a school in town X rather than town Z. Now for the exception. If the schools in the town where you reside do not provide a service that you deem necessary for your child you may qualify to have your town pay tuition to send your child to another school. I can think of several examples. Years ago I remember kids who wanted to go to Lee Academy getting their tuition paid there because they wanted to take Latin and it wasn't offered at the local school, but was at Lee Academy. The students didn't necessarily want to take Latin, they wanted to attend Lee, but that was how it was possible to get the tuition covered. Several years ago there were several Houlton students who commuted to Presque Isle because PI offered an Ag Science program. (the real reason these students went to PI was to play hockey back before Houlton had a hockey program, but to make it happen, they had to request the Ag Science program.) I know of several other examples where a school doesn't offer the Special Needs programs that a child might need and the town will have to pay tuition to send that child to a different school. I can think of a couple times Houlton paid tuition for children to attend Sweetster down in Southern Maine at a cost of over 40 grand per student per year.
So the answer to your question is if the town has a school, your kids will attend it unless there is a service you justify that they need that is not offered. The fact that you think the next town over has a better school doesn't normally work. Your town loses the state subsidy for that student and that might amount to 7 or 8 thousand dollars so school districts are not apt to close a blind eye to you sending your children to a school in another town. Even if your town doesn't have to pay tuition, they lose the state subsidy and that's money out of the school's budget. There are lots of shades of gray regarding this, but towns are becoming much more strict concerning allowing students to attend schools in another town or school district just because of the financial crunch.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

Many towns do not have high schools and those towns can choose where their kids go to high school.

That said, Maine's entire school system is being torn apart by a misguided law passed two years ago. It's anybody's guess where our kids will go to school next year if that outrageous law is not revoked during this session.

[frogcreekwoods]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Many towns do not have high schools and those towns can choose where their kids go to high school.

That said, Maine's entire school system is being torn apart by a misguided law passed two years ago. It's anybody's guess where our kids will go to school next year if that outrageous law is not revoked during this session.

Oh, please elaborate! What's going on?

[Fern435]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

Many towns do not have high schools and those towns can choose where their kids go to high school.

That said, Maine's entire school system is being torn apart by a misguided law passed two years ago. It's anybody's guess where our kids will go to school next year if that outrageous law is not revoked during this session.

The Kennebec Journal recently had an article about schools restructuring in our area (east of Monmouth), but the issues/challenges for that area were not immediately clear to me.

We have two children. The younger one will be a freshman in high school when we move to Maine in two years. The older will be in college.

[7th generation]

Around these parts, parents can go to the school district they want the children to attend and with that superintendent's signature, they are allowed to go there.