Residents and educators all over the state of Maine have put time and energy into making the administrative reorganization law work. We estimate about 25,200 hours have been spent since September by residents alone. But frustration and confusion are nearing a breaking point. It’s time to make some midcourse adjustments before this Titanic hits the iceberg.

Mainers have examined the financial, educational, transportation and governance realities accompanying this law. The savings advertised by the Maine Department of Education, the governor and some legislators simply are not there – or they are consumed by increased costs in other areas. Mainers are discovering that their property taxes will actually go up if they form a regional school unit with “dance partners” with few resources and higher needs. Few RSUs as proposed by the state are holding together. What are the governor and legislative leaders doing to ensure that poorer, more needy, and often more rural communities aren’t left out as the pie gets carved up?

The reorganization process so far has entirely ignored Maine children and their education. The state’s RSU planning template includes no educational planning, no learning-based justification for new practices. It does not call for an evaluation of the impacts of reduced spending on the quality of learning. Instead we’re only talking about cost-sharing formulas, organizational charts, budgets, bus routes, and weighted votes. What are the governor and legislative leaders doing to ensure that these RSU plans will help our children learn?

The rules for the RSU planning process have never been clear. Lack of consistent information from the Department of Education continues to create frustration and confusion locally. Superintendents and facilitators place call after call to Augusta for guidance on, for example, cost-sharing formulas, RSU board powers, local school committees, or transportation data and get conflicting responses (and sometimes no response). So educators are left to plan in the dark, hoping that their efforts will match a blueprint in Augusta that apparently does not exist. What are the governor and education commissioner doing to ensure that the planning process follows “best practice” strategic planning steps?

The timeline for developing plans and putting them before school boards and residents is so short that solid information-gathering and effective deliberations cannot happen. The Department of Education publicly states that few if any complete plans were ready by the mandated date, Dec. 1. We believe in “data-based decisions” in our schools, yet the timeline dictated by the law doesn’t permit data-based, thoughtful decisions for the most sweeping change in Maine schooling in the past 50 years. What are the governor and commissioner doing to provide time and expertise for thoughtful deliberations on this matter so vital to Maine families, communities, and economy?

Everybody recognizes the need to live within our means. But setting unrealistic timelines, providing little guidance and fiscal support, and then threatening Maine citizens with punishments if they fail to comply is no way to achieve this important goal. We would never support such an approach in our schools. It’s morally and logistically ruinous.

The Maine Small Schools Coalition calls on the governor, legislative leaders and the commissioner of education to apply some good old common sense to the four questions we pose. We call on them to address them immediately and to support the Maine Department of Education’s efforts to work with the residents and communities of Maine, not against them. If they want something positive to result from this effort, as we do, we urge them immediately to correct the course we are on.

Scott K. Porter is the president of the Maine Small Schools Coalition. Pete Johnson is the group’s vice president. This commentary was written on behalf of the coalition’s board of directors.