Committee to assess future of SAD 33 2 towns’ cost-sharing ratio to be revisited

FRENCHVILLE – A nine-person ad hoc committee is being formed in SAD 33 to look at the future of the school district and cost sharing ratio of the two towns in it.

The committee is an offshoot of a previous committee that looked at cost sharing in the district. That six-person committee deadlocked, 3-3, on the question of putting a cost sharing referendum to the residents of St. Agatha and Frenchville.

“The new committee will look at that question again,” Superintendent Jerry White said Thursday, his last day at the helm of the district. “They will also look at other issues, like the potential loss of students in the next five years.”

“It’s my understanding that the new committee will also look at possibly drafting a survey for residents of the district,” Ryan Pelletier, St. Agatha town manager said Thursday. “It could look at cost sharing, but also the curriculum of the schools, and possibly things like the tuitioning of high school students.”

Last year, St. Agatha asked for a committee to review the split of SAD 33 costs. Residents wanted to change the ratio, which uses municipal valuation alone for cost sharing, to one that would use valuation and student population.

At the end of several months, there was no referendum for residents.

“Now there has been a request for this new committee,” White said. “It will have more people and maybe a different look at the question.”

The new committee will have two school board members, two selectmen and two residents, one from each town, two educators, one each from Wisdom High School and the Dr. Levesque Elementary School, and the superintendent.

Members named so far to the new committee are school Directors Danny Bechard and Cleo Ouellette, Selectmen Karleen Cyr from Frenchville and Diane Castonguay from St. Agatha., Andrew McQuarrie from Frenchville, and Conrad Cyr and Helen Melvin as the two educators. St. Agatha must still name a resident to the committee. SAD 33’s new superintendent, Fern Desjardins, will be on the committee as well.

The date for the first meeting of the committee will be set by the school board when it meets on July 11.

One of the issues with which the committee will deal is declining enrollment in SAD 33. Today the district has 347 students, but White believes the district could lose as many as 70 pupils over the next five to seven years.

“This drop in student population may have prompted a new look at the issue,” he said. “Despite the low numbers, our per-pupil expenditure is in line with the state average.”

White said the issue comes from elected officials.

“I have not heard a hue and cry from the general population about the cost sharing issue,” White said.

Pelletier views the new committee as one that will look to residents for opinions. Members will seek opinions not only on cost sharing, but also on curriculum and the school facilities themselves.

He said they may even look at the cost of tuitioning secondary students, compared to the present cost to educate them in the district.

Pelletier said the Education Committee of the Legislature has passed a resolution, specific to SAD 33, to have a seven-person committee look at cost sharing.

“One of the problems we had with the last committee was that it was even numbered,” he said. “The resolution calls for a seventh person, one from the Maine Department of Education to be a tie-breaker.”

He said the committee could decide to implement the legislative resolution, making SAD 33 a test for a new look at cost sharing in SADs in Maine.

In the end, if a cost sharing change is to come about, it must go to a referendum of SAD 33 residents.