MILLINOCKET – The Millinocket School Committee will meet with school board members from East Millinocket and Medway to discuss consolidating in accordance with a new state law, committee Chairman Thomas Malcolm said Wednesday.

Superintendent Sara Alberts on Friday sent two letters of intent to the state Department of Education. One advocated a consolidation of school systems serving the three towns. The other calls for Millinocket to join the 25 communities in northern Penobscot County to form Regional School Unit 17, as was originally suggested by the department’s consolidation plan.

Malcolm also said that, contrary to what SAD 67 Superintendent Michael Marcinkus said Tuesday, Millinocket is not claiming it is too isolated to join other consolidation efforts,

No date has been set for Millinocket officials to meet with school board members from East Millinocket and Medway, Malcolm said, but he expects it will happen within two weeks. The school committee approved the letters of intent last Tuesday.

Since the three towns combined have slightly more than 1,100 students available, any plans to consolidate the communities by themselves will likely face an uphill battle in gaining approval from the state.

Under the law creating the regional school units, each new district must consist of at least 2,500 students and one publicly funded high school. But districts of at least 1,200 students will be permitted when demographics or geography make it unreasonable for those systems to combine.

Malcolm said he sees many benefits to keeping the towns together that might sway the state.

“I want to keep control local,” Malcolm said Wednesday. “Between the three towns, we will have a school in each community. There will be [out of town] busing, but I don’t think it will be an exorbitant issue.”

Besides minimal busing and local school control, the plan’s attributes include recognition that all Penobscot County schools face diminishing student populations, which could make the 1,200 more of a goal than a solid guideline, Malcolm said.

“We have heard it both ways,” he said.

Maine’s new school consolidation reorganization law, which passed with the state budget in June, requires that most school units reorganize into larger, more efficient systems.

The districts had until Aug. 31 to file letters of intent saying which other districts they are discussing combining with to form a new regional school unit. The letters are not final or binding but indicate that the school systems are getting to work.

The state has two weeks upon receiving the letters to OK or deny the letters and to provide financial funding information to the prospective partners. If all goes well, voters will have a referendum in January to decide whether they approve of their municipalities’ reorganization plans.

Malcolm said that much to his shock he finds himself still being approached by residents who blame him or Alberts for the reorganization effort. Those residents fail to recognize that neither the superintendent nor the school committee chairman can ignore a state law or directives from the state Department of Education without imperiling state funding to the schools or facing court action.

“We don’t have a choice with this,” Malcolm said.