E. Millinocket literacy center to stay open

EAST MILLINOCKET – Slated to close Friday, the Chickadee Family Literacy Center received an eleventh-hour reprieve that morning while employees were in the process of boxing up the office.

The office will remain open until June 30, when it will be re-evaluated for its third year of funding under the four-year Even Start grant.

Keith Ober, Union 113 interim superintendent, decided last week to close the center after talking with state Department of Education officials about the center’s lack of participating families.

The federal guidelines for the grant require centers to serve at least 15 families, while the East Millinocket site has served just two families for most of the past two years, according to Education Commissioner Susan Gendron.

Education Department officials sent notification last fall that funding would be cut off if the center’s numbers didn’t increase, Gendron said.

While it was Ober’s decision to close the center, Education Department staff had told the center’s staff it could remain open until June 30, Gendron said.

On Friday morning, Ober informed Lorie Peabody, the center’s administrator, that the center could stay open through June. Ober said his intention was to be accountable to taxpayers and not waste government money if it could be used better elsewhere. He also said it was unfortunate that the center’s staff had to keep adjusting to new decisions.

“I want to publicly apologize to them for this,” Ober said. “I’m sure it’s rough on them emotionally to have to move everything out and then move it all back in.”

While Friday’s announcement came as a surprise, Peabody said she hoped the center could attract new families during a recruitment activity planned for April to acquaint incoming kindergarten pupils and their parents with the staff at the Opal Myrick Elementary School.

Gendron said she was cautiously optimistic the center’s staff could recruit enough families to qualify for another year of funding under the grant, roughly $110,000.

“If they can find more families, we can certainly reconsider,” Gendron said Friday in a telephone interview. “It would be wonderful for the region.”