SAD 31 funding rides on state report

HOWLAND – Maine Education Commissioner Susan Gendron will report Tuesday whether SAD 31 qualifies for $9.6 million to rebuild or renovate Penobscot Valley High School.

Gendron is expected to tell school board members at their 7 p.m. meeting the results of her department’s in-depth analysis of whether the high school has an adequate academic program.

She has not yet made that determination, Gendron said Friday in a telephone interview, and would not say which way she was leaning.

“Folks are frantically trying to pull everything together so we can be timely in responding to the adequacy question,” Gendron said Friday. “One of the things I have been doing is reviewing the prior reports and awaiting the reports from the team that visited the school system.”

According to law, the State Board of Education may approve a secondary school construction project for fewer than 300 pupils only if it has determined that the school will have an adequate education program.

Gendron’s findings will be crucial in determining whether the Howland area gets a new high school, SAD 31 Interim Superintendent Ann Bridge said.

“There is a lot riding on this meeting,” Bridge said Friday. “This is a wait-and-see meeting for the community. I won’t know what [Gendron’s] recommendations are until she tells us.

“This is not a typical meeting,” Bridge added, saying she hoped that people interested in seeing a new school would attend. “It’s strictly for the commissioner to present her results.”

SAD 31 board Chairwoman Beth Turner could not be reached for comment.

The district has been on the state’s construction list for nearly three years. Earlier this month, it was about to lose its funding because a report issued last year by consultants said, among other things, that the school’s programs were inadequate for noncollege bound students to meet the state’s academic standards in science and math, that the social studies curriculum was limited, and that professional development was lacking.

But the board voted unanimously last month to keep SAD 31 on the state’s priority construction list when Gendron said she learned that several changes had been made to the high school’s curriculum.

Gendron has examined a variety of indicators, including curriculum, test scores and graduation and college attendance rates, to see whether PVHS offers an appropriate education.

The Howland area system is the first to apply for construction funds for a high school with fewer than 300 students, so it will become a test case for the state, which has never had to define what adequate education means for a school of that size.

Gendron will present her findings to the state board on Nov. 10 before meeting with SAD 31 members to publicly go over her findings and their supporting data, she said. Under state law, SAD 31 has 60 days to respond to her findings with a plan for correcting any problems her team may have discovered.

SAD 31 board members probably will not hear any news from Gendron about the state investigation of Superintendent William Ziemer, Gendron said.

Ziemer is on indefinite paid leave. He is being investigated by the Maine Department of Education because 700 residents signed a petition last month requesting the state determine his fitness. SAD 31 also is doing its own probe.

Ziemer’s one-year tenure has been marked by controversy since the state refused to pay for a new high school. SAD 31 was told to develop a consolidation plan with SAD 67 to provide secondary education, but consolidation talks have died. Some critics opposed to consolidation have targeted Ziemer.