York Town News
School officials discuss consolidation
By Jennifer L. Saunders
YORK - When it comes to how, and with whom, to consolidate local schools, the discussions are now underway.
Just weeks after the Maine Legislature passed its school district consolidation mandate as part of the fiscal 2008 state budget, school officials from Kittery and York met together at Kittery's Shapleigh Middle School to see whether a merger between these two neighboring districts could meet the state-required funding cuts while keeping in line with each district's commitment to education.
Last Thursday evening, July 12, the Kittery School Committee and Superintendent Larry Littlefield hosted the York School Committee and York Superintendent Dr. Henry Scipione in the first of what both committees have agreed will be ongoing discussions of the potential for consolidation - or, at least, collaboration.
The state's consolidation plan suggests a match between York and Kittery; however, the two districts could choose other partnerships with contiguous districts as the consolidation process moves forward.
The requirement is that the districts create a proposal to join with at least one neighboring district, unless they are determined by the state to be "high-performing" schools. However, as Scipione explained, despite a report that looked only at schools administering the Maine Education Assessment - in which Coastal Ridge Elementary School was named a high-performing school, the Maine Department of Education announced earlier this month that the criteria for that designation for existing districts has not yet been decided. In fact, the most recent MEA score reports to be released, which were issued in August of 2006, York students exceeded the state average at every grade level and in all subject areas.
While the question of whether there could be an exemption for exemplary district performance remains unanswered, York, Kittery and other neighboring communities are holding meetings to discuss which districts should match up and create consolidation plans by the required December deadline to the state.
As Kittery School Committee member Kim Bedard put it, "We have to date and we have to dance, but we don't have to get married."
Littlefield reviewed the timeline for consolidation at Thursday's meeting, noting districts must identify, by Aug. 31, who their partners will be in this first phase of the plan.
Ultimately, it will be up to the voters in each community to decide whether consolidation is in the best interest of their schools and towns, but Littlefield and Scipione stressed that their districts are required, under the mandate, to research the possibilities and present information to the Maine Department of Education in the form of a reorganization plan by Dec. 15, and then to the voters at a municipal referendum.
Members of the York School Committee and local school officials have stressed, the goal is to do their "due diligence" in exploring the options and bringing forward a proposal to the voters. To those ends, the York School Committee was also scheduled to meet with school officials from Wells-Ogunquit on Tuesday evening, July 17, but no information from that meeting was available at press time.
The York School Committee had met on Wednesday, July 11, to prepare for the meeting with Kittery the following evening and agreed to a draft agenda that included key questions, such as what information will be needed to determine whether a Kittery-York partnership is viable and if there are potential benefits to the students and communities.
Thursday evening, Kittery School Committee Chairman Jeff Pelletier and York School Committee Chairwoman Marilyn Zotos led the discussion of those target questions in a meeting that members of both districts agreed was both positive and productive, with similar concerns regarding budgeting impacts and quality of education clearly on the minds of the members of both committees.
The committee members who spoke echoed what Scipione and Littlefield have repeatedly said about the willingness of the towns to work together, but they also stated that a one-size-fits-all state mandate is not the answer.
"That pool of costs where we can probably agree there are some cost savings is small," said York School Committee member John D'Aquila.
That state's plan focuses on saving money through such changes as a decrease of administrative positions and cuts in transportation cuts. School officials have acknowledged there is room in many districts to cut costs in these areas, but reiterated that any options for Kittery and York would be in administration only, if at all, as both towns use a bid process to hire independent contractors to provide transportation.
"I remain very concerned about all the proclamations of the cost savings to be had in the central office," Pelletier.
For example, the districts have differences in central office structures, grade configurations, class sizes and salary scales.
In York, where the town has built and renovated its school facilities without state aid, there are also concerns about the required transfer of ownership of those buildings to the regional district while the town itself will be required to continue to pay off the debt.
Conversely, state-funded building debt would have to be absorbed by the district, meaning York residents would have to absorb a share in the cost for any state-funded buildings in a combined district.
And, there are differences in curriculum instruction between the districts as well, which all together prompted the boards to ask Littlefield and Scipione to gather specific information on those factors for their next meeting, currently scheduled for Aug. 13 in York.
"Both Kittery and York are such minimum receivers," said Kittery School Committee member Tess Schneier, who works in the York School Department, adding the communities will ultimately have to weigh the penalty for not consolidating - a loss of about $1 million in annual state aid for York and $500,000 for Kittery - against the impact of a merger on the quality of education.
This year, York will receive about $2.2 million in state aid, comprised mostly of special education funding. That number is expected to increase by $100,000 next year to $2.3 million next year, when an approved increase to educational funding goes into effect.
The penalty for communities that do not consolidate is a loss of 50 percent of their state funding
"I need to really be concerned that it's in the best interest of students," Schneier said.
Kittery School Committee member Patti Ayer said that while the consolidation plan may work well in other areas in the state, "one size does not fit all. ... It's not beneficial to York and Kittery because it's going to cost us more in the long run and it doesn't benefit the students."
Ayer and others pointed out that the two communities have already been in discussions to collaborate to improve services and save costs, but that they do not believe a forced plan will not accomplish those goals.
For example, York School Committee members have been concerned that the disparity in teacher salaries between the two communities will have a significant future impact on York taxpayers. Contractual requirements in a consolidated district would require salaries to be brought to a comparable level - while the difference in size between Kittery and York would mean York would have to shoulder approximately two-thirds of the cost to bring Kittery salaries up to York's level.
Meanwhile, Kittery School Committee members spoke of the significantly smaller class sizes in Kittery - a factor in the salary amounts offered to teachers - and the impact of a consolidated district on the size of those classes.
Kittery School Committee member Ken Lemont, who served in the Maine Legislature for many years, also voiced Kittery's concern that York, with a two-to-one student population size over Kittery, would have a two-to-one vote on a regional school board if the two districts did merge into one.
"York would always have the majority vote," he said.
For York residents, Zotos explained, the state-mandated creation of a Regional School Unit (RSU) budgeting plan appears to nullify the town's home rule charter, as the Budget Committee would no longer have oversight for school expenditures and voters would be required to follow a new process for school funding approval with a limited number of warrant articles.
A small group of residents from both towns, including state Representatives Windol Weaver, R-York; Dawn Hill, D-York, and Walter Wheeler, D-Kittery, as well as Kittery Town Manager Jonathan Carter and York Selectwoman Kinley Gregg, attended the meeting.
As the meeting came to its close, Schneier praised Littlefield, Scipione and the central office staff of both towns for the hours spent working on the required elements of the consolidation mandate.
Their integrity and commitment to education, she said, "demonstrates true leadership in both our communities" as the extra work they have undertaken "could end one or both of their jobs."
