Maine’s commissioner of education explained Monday how the governor’s plan to consolidate all the state’s school districts into 26 would work, saying individual cities and towns would have a voice through grassroots advisory committees, but they would not have the option of refusing to participate.
Gov. John Baldacci’s dramatic proposal to reduce the current number of school districts and local school committees from 290 to 26 by July of 2008 left some school administrators reeling over the weekend.
“Clearly they’re concerned about the timeline,” said Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, with administrators questioning, “Is it too aggressive?”
Gendron spoke to school superintendents, school committee members and administrators Tuesday in a televised conference from Augusta to 90 sites. Gorham hosted one of the sites in its high school library. School officials watched Gendron’s address on a big screen.
Gendron Monday said she’s been asked why more consensus-building wasn’t done before the plan was announced last week as part of the governor’s budget. She said a number of reports came out last year, and they all said the same thing – reduce administrative costs and improve student learning.
Under the governor’s plan, an estimated $240 million will be saved at the state and local level over three years to reduce taxes and allow money to be reinvested in classroom learning. Fewer districts also will allow the state to get all schools working toward the same student achievement goals.
“Maine has some of the toughest standards in the country,” Gendron said, “but what we see is there’s varied interpretation about what those standards are.”
The state’s 152 superintendents, some of whom already oversee more than one district, have the most personally to lose. All their jobs would go away, and 26 superintendents would be hired to run the consolidated districts. Those districts would range in student enrollment from 1,824 in Calais and 2,546 in Madawaska to 17,728 in Sanford and 19,996 in Portland.
Under the plan, Region 24 in Westbrook would encompass a 15,500-student population from the communities of Standish, Windham, Limington, Westbrook, Gorham, Buxton, Hollis, Scarborough and Frye Island.
“The local schools stay in place and the local principals stay in place,” said Gendron. It’s the administration to support 152 central offices that would go away.
“At first blush, I think it would be difficult to manage,” said Gorham School Superintendent Ted Sharp, on hand Tuesday for the Gendron teleconference. “It would take middle managers to run it.”
Jean Harmon, a parent and a Buxton selectman, said this week she doesn’t favor the redistricting, as she said School Administrative District 6 is already one of the state’s largest school districts.
“It would be overwhelming,” Harmon said of the large number. “I’m not in favor of it at all. I’m not in agreement with the governor.”
Sharp said school districts from 2,500 to 4,500 students have demonstrated to be the most proficient. Sharp thought 60 to 70 school districts in Maine would keep “everything accountable.”
Sharp said he would reserve judgment on the plan until he learns more details. He said the primary consideration should be what is best for the kids, with fiscal responsibilities second.
“I’m not angry or upset,” Sharp said about the plan to reduce the number of superintendents.
Roger Marchand, a Gorham School Committee member and a retired educator, said this week that cutting the number of school superintendents to 26 isn’t the answer.
Marchand said the real problem is the number of small schools that the state isn’t going to consolidate. “There’s no big public outcry in cutting superintendents,” Marchand said.
Jan Breton, assistant superintendent in Westbrook, thinks the state has too many school districts and some could be consolidated.
But, she said, “The governor’s proposal is too much too fast. The timeline is ridiculously fast. I feel it would hurt children in the short term.”
Stan Sawyer, Westbrook superintendent, believed there has been a need to consolidate some services among school districts and is keeping an open mind about the governor’s proposal. “This plan is very bold,” Sawyer said. “I’m a little concerned about the aggressiveness of the timeline.”
Sawyer said teachers, staffs and superintendents all have unanswered questions. He said the proposal would erode local control and said success would depend on structure and duties of the regional school boards. “I would like to see the Department of Education establish guidelines for the regional board,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer said the proposal predicts a savings of a quarter of a billion dollars. He said eliminating all the superintendents wouldn’t save that money. “I would like to see where those savings come from,” Sawyer said.
Gendron did admit the new regional school boards, which would consist of between five and 15 members, could vote to close schools. But cities and towns have the option under law to hold a referendum to keep their school open, if they’re willing to pick up the extra costs.
Jim Hager, chairman of the Gorham School Committee, believed that the redistricting plan wouldn’t halt the plans for White Rock School. Hager said Gorham has already identified the need to build a new school. Gorham hopes to have three elementary schools – Village, Narragansett and White Rock – with kindergarten through fifth grade.
“Anything in the pipeline now will continue,” Hager said.
If Baldacci’s proposal makes it through the Legislature, community school districts will cease to exist under law as of July, 2008, Gendron said.
Each district will negotiate its own, district-wide teachers contract and assume responsibility for state-subsidized debt for new schools or renovations. In those cases where local districts already have opted to pay for new schools on their own and without state help – as is the case in Scarborough, for example – that debt will remain the responsibility of that town, not the new district, Gendron said.
Andrew Dolloff, a Gorham resident who is an assistant superintendent in Scarborough, thinks Scarborough residents wouldn’t like turning over schools to a regional district while maintaining the town’s debt. “I think people would have a problem with that,” Dolloff said.
The administration will use state aid for K-12 education – projected to be at $1 billion or 55 percent of the cost by 2009 – distributed under the essential programs and services funding model to influence the direction of the new regional districts.
If the Legislature amends the proposal and opts for a greater number of districts, for example, Gendron said she would recommend districts still only get the same amount for administration as recommended in the governor’s plan – $186 per student versus the current $346.
The 26 regional school boards could vote to spend more than recommended under the state funding formula, as many of the wealthier districts do now, but it would require a vote of the member cities and towns, whose citizens will have to pay the bill.
The amount each community pays to support its school district would be determined the way it is now, but the difference is they would not have local control through their own school board.
Gendron said that’s where the local advisory boards come into play, made up of parents and other local citizens, who would talk to the regional school board, but have no legal authority.
“The link with the advisory board is absolutely essential,” she said.
The state has $1.8 million in the education budget to hire facilitators this year to help districts form a region.
“We will have a team of individuals ready to roll on July 1 should the Legislature implement the governor’s proposal,” Gendron said, and the governor is “adamant about moving forward.”
The timeline calls for 26 regional school boards to be elected in October of 2007 and they would then hire their respective superintendents. Local school districts would be dissolved and the new regional districts empowered by July of 2008.
The 26 school districts essentially would mirror the regional vocational education schools already serving the state.
There would be administrative districts centered in Madawaska, Caribou, Presque Isle, Houlton, Calais, Machias, Ellsworth, Bangor, Lincoln, Dexter, Belfast, Rockland, Skowhegan, Waterville, Augusta, Bath, Brunswick, Lewiston, Farmington, Rumford, Oxford, Bridgton, Portland, Westbrook, Biddeford and Sanford.
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