Schools in the Balance SAD 37 Hikers Plead Their Funding Case in Augusta

By WALTER GRIFFIN; OF THE NEWS STAFF

Though supporters of small schools may believe they finally are being heard here in Augusta, they also know they may have to make a lot more noise before winning changes to a school funding formula they feel is stacked against them.

Led by a large contingent from SAD 37 in Washington County that spent the past five days walking from Columbia Falls to the state capital, small-school supporters gathered at the State House to plead for a fair share of state funding. They are convinced that larger schools have become beneficiaries of state support at their expense.

After a rally Tuesday morning on the State House steps, the group’s representatives met with Commissioner of Education Susan Gendron and informed the Legislature’s Education Committee of their needs.

Like dozens of small school districts, SAD 37 wound up on the losing end when the Department of Education released the level of funding under its Essential Programs and Services formula. The school district will receive $313,000 less in state dollars in 2006- 07 than it did this year.

That situation left school board and community leaders with the prospect of having to close two of its five elementary schools. Schools in Cherryfield and Columbia Falls could be forced to close at the end of the school year if the board is unable to persuade the community to raise the necessary funding locally to keep them open. The board will address the matter when it meets next Wednesday.

“As many steps as it took you to walk here, it will take you that many more to fix EPS,” Keith Cook of the Small Schools Coalition told the 75 sign- and flag-waving marchers who gathered at the State House. The march to Augusta began Thursday and covered 128 miles.

Gendron told those gathered that the department was committed to equal opportunity for all Maine students. She said that the department would continue to work with the EPS formula in hopes of addressing their concerns.

Gendron noted that while EPS “doesn’t work for all,” it was working “for the majority of the schools” in the state. “We are trying to address your concerns and your issues,” she said.

The commissioner said she hoped to persuade the Legislature to consider changes to EPS that would provide additional funding for certain schools. She noted that SAD 37 was hit by a double whammy of declining enrollment and soaring property values, both key components of the EPS formula. Gendron said she would recommend devising some form of cap on valuations to provide relief for communities with high-priced coastal or lakeshore property.

She also promised to provide SAD 37 with funding projections for future years before the next school board meeting as a way to help officials gauge long-term education costs.

SAD 37 board Chairman Steve Pagels noted that the state subsidy to the district has declined from 62 percent of local education costs in 1997 to 31 percent last year because of changes in real estate valuations and the new formula. Throughout that same period, the district’s elementary schools have excelled and are among the state’s leaders in assessment scores, he said.

“We would hate to be a textbook example of a small school that is working that doesn’t make it” because of EPS, Pagels said.

Pagels commended Gendron for her willingness to listen and to work with the district to find a solution.

“This has been very positive dealing with the commissioner, especially in the areas she’s looking at,” said Pagels. “I know our board does not want to close schools.”

Later Tuesday afternoon, the group pressed its case before the Legislature’s Education Committee. Pagels reiterated his board’s concerns that the EPS formula has created a “serious shortfall” that presents the district with “draconian options” if it wants to keep operating.

Roger Shaw, superintendent of schools for SAD 42 in Mars Hill and Blaine, told the committee that revising EPS was critical for the health of small schools in Maine. Shaw said that when school boards are forced to close buildings, the entire community is hurt. If equal opportunity was the state’s educational goal, he said, “then EPS must be changed.

“If it doesn’t work for all, then it doesn’t work at all,” said Shaw. “Though EPS is possibly a good model, it is a model that does not work for a lot of school districts in Maine.”

The committee’s Senate chairman, Elizabeth Mitchell, D- Vassalboro, replied that the panel was willing to consider changes provided they were equitable.

“No one embraced the funding formula with the idea of closing schools, small or large,” said Mitchell. “This is not a frontal attack on anybody. This is about equity.”