CASTINE – Concerned that a state plan to consolidate school administrations will eliminate local control and eventually result in the closing of small schools, members of the Castine School Board have mounted a petition drive and informational campaign aimed at protecting their school.

Board Chairman Tom Gutow said Thursday that the board had collected 75 signatures on the petition asking state leaders to take a second look at the consolidation plan.

Gutow said he was prepared to “go on the road” to alert other communities of the threat posed by consolidation. He said he was working to rally rural communities to oppose the proposal.

“We feel very strongly that this plan will be a real threat to small schools because it creates a super (school) board that would eliminate local control,” Gutow said Thursday. “It would be naive to believe that this doesn’t put us at a disadvantage.”

The consolidation plan developed by a subcommittee of the Legislature’s Appropriations Committee, working with the Committee on Educational and Cultural Affairs, calls for reducing the existing 290 school units to no more than 80 districts with a minimum of 2,500 students.

Some exceptions could be made for islands and other rural communities, but the plan requires the Department of Education to adhere to the larger school districts whenever possible.

The Appropriations Committee is expected to approve the proposal next week. It will then be passed on to the full Legislature as part of Gov. John Baldacci’s budget. Its supporters contend the plan will save taxpayers $36.5 million when implemented in June 2008.

Under the plan, the consolidated districts would be governed by a single school board. The board could be made up of one representative from each community in the district, or members from sub-districts of a group of communities, or be governed by at-large representation.

The type of management structure would be left to the consolidated district. The new districts and boards must be in place by January.

“By this time next year there’ll be no local districts,” Gutow said.

Gutow said Castine residents were concerned that the new districts would be weighted in favor of larger communities. He predicted that whenever demands are made to cut the budget, it would stand to reason that the ax would fall on those smaller communities with less political clout.

Castine has an annual school budget of $1.1 million for about 90 students. Approximately 65 pupils attend the K-8 Adams School and 26 students are tuitioned to a number of area high schools.

“We have local control and we feel we’re responsible financially,” Gutow said. “We feel we’re going to be put in a position that’s going to compromise our children’s education and we don’t want that to happen.”

Gutow said he supported the concept of consolidation provided it did not eliminate his town’s school board. Having a local board was the only way to prevent schools from closing he said.

He said if the Adams School was closed, Castine would “become a gated community for summer residents” overnight.

“We’re not opposed to consolidation. We’re in Union 93 and we’re fine being part of a larger district with more towns involved. But we don’t feel our interests will be met if our school board is removed,” he said.

Gutow suggested that it was time to step back and take another year to refine the consolidation plan instead of rushing it through before determining the long-term consequences.

He said it was critical for rural communities to convince enough legislators to delay or amend the proposal to preserve local control.

“This desire to rush makes it ill-conceived,” he said. “We’re looking at a poorly planned thing and no matter what we do we should move it back a year. It’s a complicated issue and I don’t think complicated issues can be decided by the 10 smartest people in Maine, or even a committee, in a matter of six weeks.”