Katahdin area examines school consolidation

A new regional committee charged with studying the consolidation of Katahdin area schools is expected to hold its first meeting next month, according to school officials.

East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket school boards in three separate meetings last week appointed representatives to the new study committee. Today, the Woodville School Board is expected to appoint a representative to the committee.

Members appointed to date are Jayne Bartley of the Millinocket School Board, Bill Hamlin of East Millinocket and Steve Federico of Medway. School Union 113 Superintendent Sandra MacArthur and Millinocket Superintendent Brent Colbry will also serve on the new committee.

In a joint meeting earlier this month, the four boards unanimously voted to create the new committee to study school consolidation. The joint meeting was called after some town officials urged school officials to study the issue before school enrollments decline further.

Colbry and MacArthur handed out to their respective boards a draft proposal of the potential scope of work for the new study committee. It included:

. Reviewing different types of school units such as school districts, community school districts and school unions;

. Gathering information about enrollments, program and extracurricular offerings, staffing and staff development, building use, labor agreements, liabilities, budget and revenue information and information about school subsidy and municipal values, retirees’ insurance costs, transportation and debt;

. Establishing five-year enrollment projects and a five-year forecast of costs to maintain current programs and services in each school system and its effect on local tax rates;

. Developing an alternative model of educating all students from the four towns based on the different types of school structures such as an SAD, CSD, or union and compare the cost of each model with the five-year forecast of costs to maintain current programs and services;

. Developing a cost-sharing comparison for each of the school models;

. Summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of each operational structure.

Both superintendents asked members to review the draft and suggest any areas they would like added to it.

Colbry said the task of the new committee was to go through an information gathering and discovery process to look at the issue of potential school consolidation possibilities and report back to the respective boards. “It’s a study group,” he said. “We are here to learn and not convince somebody of something.”

MacArthur said the task of the committee was to explore the alternatives, but also to see what else could be done to improve education for all students in the region.

Bartley said the committee will find out what the needs are and what the potential is for the future. “We are going into it with open eyes,” she said.

Federico views the new committee as a steering committee that will decide what types of information needs to be gathered and will direct an independent study of the alternatives regarding school consolidation.

Dave Rush, chairman of the East Millinocket board, said the officials need to be prepared for what the future will bring. “We need to look at this issue not when it has to happen, or when ‘my child is out of school,’ but now, so we have time to explore this and not be forced into something blindly and with no options,” he said.

East Millinocket and Medway school officials indicated support for having an independent study prepared perhaps by the University of Maine.

Belinda Hobbs, an East Millinocket resident, suggested another new independent committee that “is totally unbiased” and objective be formed to gather information for the new regional committee. Hobbs told officials of both boards it would be difficult and was not right for the superintendents and the school boards to put together information needed for the new regional study committee.

East Millinocket school officials will ask town officials to include an article on the May town meeting warrant so residents can discuss the findings of the new committee.

At the Medway meeting, Pam Rossignol, a board member, asked that the new committee look at all costs.