New Brewer admissions plan concerns SAD 63

HOLDEN – The chairwoman of SAD 63 said she was flabbergasted when she read that the Brewer School Committee was considering a new policy that would require all tuition students – including SAD 63 students – to apply for admission to Brewer High School.

“When I read it in the paper the next day, I gasped,” Patricia Sirois said at Monday’s school board meeting.

Brewer’s school board held the first reading of the policy at its July 10 meeting and will consider it for adoption at its Aug. 7 meeting. If approved, the policy would go into effect Sept. 1 and would require all nonresident students to apply for admission to Brewer High.

Students within Holden, Eddington and Clifton, the communities that comprise SAD 63, traditionally have been able to choose which high school they would like to attend, and a majority choose Brewer.

The proposed policy would not take that choice away, but it would allow Brewer to screen tuition students.

“We’re interested in having students come to our school who are serious” about their education, Daniel Lee, Brewer’s superintendent, said during a phone interview Monday night.

Only exclusive contracts would ensure all students from one community or school district would be able to attend Brewer High without going through the admission process, Lee told the Brewer school board earlier this month.

SAD 63 board member Karen Clark asked Monday if Brewer’s superintendent had distributed information on the proposed policy. Sirois said she spoke to Lee last week but still did not have a copy.

“I really don’t know what it says,” Sirois said.

Superintendent Louise Regan said that requests for copies of the proposed policy have been made.

“We have called for the policy,” she told the SAD 63 board.

Lee said the proposed policy is available at his office in Brewer and added that he’d be happy to fax it to SAD 63, if they request it.

After the meeting, Regan added that Lee had not contacted the school department about the possibility of an exclusivity contract, which Lee verified, and Regan added that she also read about the proposed policy in the same Bangor Daily News article as Sirois.

If the new Brewer policy is approved, nonresident students would need to file an admissions application, and include academic, attendance and discipline records for two years prior, along with a recommendation from the principal of their middle school or the superintendent.

Students who are subject to school discipline at the time of the application, or who are in the juvenile justice system, will not be considered for admittance, the proposed policy reads.

Admission is contingent on the five submitted items and space availability.

No towns now have a contract to send students to Brewer.

Clark told the board she is planning to attend the Brewer School Committee meeting in August and is inviting members of the public to attend.

“That’s a big issue,” she said.

Sirois, Regan and board member Sylvia Ellis also said they would attend.

During the SAD 63 meeting Monday, the board also:

. Accepted with regret the resignation of Erica Ramsberger, education technician for the fifth grade.

. Hired Terry Martin, special education teacher, and Sara Miller, grade five teacher, at Holbrook Middle School and Amy Kessler as grade one teacher at Eddington Elementary School.