Currents in Education
Education Committee proposes new plan
By Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK - If the Education Committee's recommendations to address school consolidation win the support of the Appropriations Committee and Maine Legislature over Gov. John E. Baldacci's plan, it will be good news for the York School Department.That was the sentiment expressed by local officials last week as the Maine Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs released its recommended "Regionalization Plan" to replace the "Local Schools, Regional Support" initiative Baldacci has included as part of the state's fiscal 2008 budget.
In a nutshell, the committee's proposal recommends mandatory consolidation for school districts of less than 1,200 pupils with incentives for collaboration or consolidation for other districts. For York, that would mean incentives to work with other districts, but no requirement to become part of an 18,000-student district encompassing some 17 towns, as proposed in the governor's plan.
The Education Committee proposal calls for a two-year planning period for communities to choose partners for collaboration or consolidation, with Regional Planning Alliances based on the 26 Career and Technical Education regions used as the sites for school administrative units in the governor's plan.
The plan calls for achieving the $36.5 million the governor cut from the state budget in proposing his LSRS plan "via non-instructional savings, or any savings that were achieved through collaboration-consolidation initiatives" and to "establish a non-lapsing incentive fund for collaboration and consolidation by reallocating the $3.98 million in GPA (General Purpose Aid to Education) funds in fiscal 2009 that were proposed to provide funding for school principals to this incentive fund."
The governor's plan calls for a full-time principal in every school and allocates the nearly $4 million to those ends. Critics have cited the tiny size of certain schools - some with just a few dozen students - as a reason for not needing full-time principals.
Speaking of the proposal on Monday, March 12, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Henry Scipione said the Education Committee's recommendations are much more palatable to what York, its surrounding communities and residents and officials from across the state have said publicly that they want to see in terms of education cost reform.
"They had a very difficult task," Scipione said of the committee's work. "They had to take the governor's proposal, which was an extreme and met with a tremendous amount of opposition, and come up with something that would be acceptable to communities and create the cost savings the governor is talking about."
Whether or not the committee has accomplished that remains to be seen, he said, as the review of the proposal is currently underway.
"It's much less dramatic," Scipione said. "It's more sensitive to where districts are and to the local control issue."
In York's case, Scipione said, such provisions as an adjusted two-year timeline for implementing changes, and the plan for school unit sizes of at least 1,200 students, are favorable, though that number may be more difficult for other communities.
According to the committee, there are 236 school districts, or units, across the state with less than 1,200 students.
"We recognize that Kittery is below that and Wells-Ogunquit is not too far above it," Scipione said, adding that it is healthy to look at ways to collaborate, but not with a sweeping plan like the one proposed by Baldacci.
What remains to be seen, Scipione said, is whether the Education Committee's proposal will remain as presented. Those recommendations, which passed unanimously or with strong majority support from the 12-member Education Committee, are currently being reviewed by the Appropriations Committee, which may make changes to the plan before it is presented to the full legislature for a vote.
From there, it will be up to the governor whether he will sign the plan supported by the legislature or veto it - a move that would require a two-thirds majority of the legislature to override.
In a statement released last week, Baldacci said, "I will not support an education plan that does not reduce excess administration. I will not support an education plan that does not achieve significant savings in this budget and sustains those savings in the future. And I will not support a plan that does not deliver tax relief."
Last week, Scipione updated the School Committee on the status of the plan. At that time, School Committee member John D'Aquila said the projected savings in the governor's plan are questionable at best.
"They were never going to achieve the savings that he planned for," D'Aquila said, describing the governor's LSRS initiative as "prisms and mirrors" around the promised savings.
The challenge, Scipione said, is that the Appropriations Committee must reconcile the fiscal 2008 budget to the proposal that goes forward.
"There is a great deal of concern about what this is ultimately going to look like," he said.
Also at the School Committee meeting on March 7, the board received an update on the search for a new principal for Coastal Ridge Elementary School to replace Jane Stephenson, who will retire at the end of the current academic year. The committee had considered whether to have one principal serve both Coastal and Village Elementary Schools, but determined that would not be in the best interest of the educational program.
"I've given that a great deal of thought, and I'm moving forward with maintaining a separate principal for CRES," Scipione said, citing such reasons as two separate schools with separate staffs, organizations and identities. "We have a primary-level school and we have an intermediate school."
A total of 25 applicants have been received for the position, and a selection team is being established.
