School Reorganization
April 6, 2009 -
Two years ago the state legislature passed the reorganization law. The goal was to reduce the 290 districts to 80. The law from the onset had trouble because there were not enough details for districts to work with as they reorganized into regional school units. Click here to see the results thus far. (PDF)
Why do I bring this up? First, because most of Southern Maine school districts , including Portland, have not been affected by the reorganization law (Portland was exempt because our student count was over 2,500 pupils). On April 1st, the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee had 15 public hearings on bills that would improve the law and 2 public hearings that would repeal the law all together, including the citizen initiative bill.
What I heard last week was startling! Rural towns, over 100 of them, all over Maine have voted against reorganization for a variety of reasons. Many districts cited the fact that they could not find any cost savings and did not uncover any pluses in educational outcomes. Many districts are so isolated that it would mean students traveling 30-60 miles to get to a consolidated school. Then, there were schools who did consolidate that are struggling to pay for all the upfront costs including: combining informational systems, creating new organizational structures including school boards, and working on transportation costs. The only person speaking positively for reorganization was the Department of Education.
Here is the link to a blurb by the organizer of the citizen initiative bill
http://ellsworthmaine.com/site/index.php/2009030519560/Commentary/School-Consolidation-Repeal-Passes-Milestone.html
Also here is a great article about how school consolidation is splitting the state
http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=Edu_News_Clips&v=article&id=68721
What do you think? Click here to send me your thoughts
I think we all can agree that the State of Maine must look at ways to provide the best educational opportunities for our K-12 students. Larger student bodies should mean that more AP classes, better visual and performing arts classes, foreign language classes should be available. It also makes sense that when we have a declining school enrollment that we should have fewer schools. Yet, getting there has been a rocky road. More to come on this.
