The County to weigh school consolidation

HOULTON – A crowd of school administrators, town officials, school board members and residents is expected to turn up at the Millar Civic Center tonight for a regional meeting about school consolidation.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. and is scheduled to be facilitated by Norman Higgins, a consultant for the Department of Education.

The state’s education reorganization measure, signed into law in June, calls for restructuring Maine’s current 152 school administrative systems into 80.

All school systems must reorganize into larger, more efficient units or reorganize administrative structures to reduce costs. The reorganization effort is expected to be completed by July 2009.

The meeting in Houlton is just one of 26 scheduled to take place around the state. It is the last meeting that will be held in Aroostook County.

The Education Department is hosting the sessions to explain the process for reorganizing. Many of the meetings already have taken place, and more will follow throughout this month.

Once all of the sessions are complete, communities will have until the end of August to file a notice with the commissioner of education about whether they decided to reorganize into a larger unit or reduce costs within their own unit.

That will allow the state to see how close it is to meeting the consolidation target.

The Houlton Town Council was scheduled to hold a meeting tonight, but the group voted last month to hold the session on Tuesday evening so that councilors and town officials could attend the informational session.

The schedule for the remaining informational sessions is:

. Calais: 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 10, Calais High School cafetorium.

. Rockland: 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 10, Rockland District High School auditorium.

. Machias: 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 11, University of Maine at Machias, Science 102.

. Skowhegan: 7 p.m. Thursday, July 12, Skowhegan Area High School auditorium.