CHARLESTON – “Together we stand, locally and globally,” reads a sign at the entrance to the Charleston Elementary School.
That message was conveyed Saturday when residents voted 73-21 to proceed with the process for withdrawal from SAD 68.
Residents also voted to spend up to $10,000 for the withdrawal process.
After about two hours of discussion, residents agreed to form a four-member committee that will devise a withdrawal and educational plan for the town’s kindergarten through grade 12 students and will determine the associated costs.
The committee will consist of a school board member, a selectman, a member of the local educational advisory committee and a resident at large. Once the plan and costs are known, the documents will be submitted to the Department of Education for the commissioner’s approval, according to Glenn Jordan, chairman of the town’s educational advisory committee.
The information will then be presented to residents at a public hearing before the matter is determined during a referendum vote. For the town to withdraw, support must be shown by two-thirds of the voters who participate in the referendum, Jordan said.
Many questions were raised at the meeting moderated by resident Albert Libby, who advised he was a proponent of keeping a school in the town.
Although the town owns 16.79 percent of the approximately $8 million in district assets, Jordan said he was told by other educational leaders in the state that it was likely the town would leave the district with no assets and no liabilities. “Don’t expect the district to cut you a check for $1.2 million,” he said. The town’s share of the district’s debt service is about $8,700, he noted.
Jordan said the town would receive its state allocation for education if the town pulled out of the district. To determine the allocation for the ensuing year, the Education Department looks at the previous closed-out school year for true costs, he explained.
Barry Higgins, a planning board member, said Charleston is the only town in the district that is growing, in part because of the new jobs at the Mount View Youth Development Center.
“Monson is dying, Dover-Foxcroft is dead, Sebec is sick and Charleston is still healthy,” he said. Because of the declining population in the other communities in the district and the subsequent loss of subsidy, local funds are going to increase, he explained.
Higgins said the student population in SAD 68 has declined by 154 in the last four years. “We have got a hopeless situation in SAD 68 as far as paying bills,” he said.
According to Higgins, the town paid $373,000 for education last year and anticipates this year’s cost will be $411,000. If the town remains in the district, he predicted, it would end up paying $500,000 in four to five years. Since neighboring Corinth cannot absorb the town’s 148 kindergarten through eighth-grade pupils, Higgins said, the only options in his mind – if residents vote to withdraw – is to build a new school or renovate and add on to the existing building. He said he would rather invest in a school in the town than pay to renovate the Morton Avenue Elementary School in Dover-Foxcroft to accommodate Charleston children.
Not everyone agreed with Higgins. Some asked how the town could afford to build and maintain its own school, questions which must be answered in the educational and withdrawal plan. Others had lingering questions about special education costs for the town’s 22 special needs children.
“The more information you give us, the more questions I have,” resident R. Christopher Almy said. He said that to spend $10,000 without knowing more is “risky, risky business.” He noted that the town had been in the district for a number of years and suggested that its relationship with Foxcroft Academy was excellent.
Jordan said academy officials had forwarded a letter to town officials advising them the academy would accept the high school students even if the town voted to withdraw from the district.
To help support local educational efforts, residents on Saturday also voted to form a nonprofit corporation to allow the town to accept funds for the development of programs and for capital expenditures at the school. It was announced that the local Girl Scouts had raised about $600 for the school from a bottle drive. Local contractor Ken Churchill told residents Saturday that he would match that amount. In addition, a fund-raising bingo game is planned at 1 p.m. June 8, at the American Legion hall in Dover-Foxcroft.
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