Baldacci Takes School Plan to The County

By Rachel Rice, Bangor Daily News, Maine

Feb. 13–PRESQUE ISLE — While many local officials say they are for school regionalization in Maine, they don’t like how the governor’s Local Schools, Regional Support initiative will limit local control.

People in the region voiced their concerns about the governor’s proposed school redistricting plan during the listening tour which Gov. John Baldacci and Education Commissioner Susan Gendron conducted Monday in Aroostook County.

Baldacci and Gendron made three morning stops in Presque Isle and two afternoon stops in Fort Kent to speak with business and school officials, as well as high school students, about the proposed initiative.

The plan, included in Baldacci’s two-year budget, calls for the reduction of school administrative units in the state from 290 to 26. It does not call for closing any schools. The goal of the initiative is to streamline the state’s 50-year-old educational structure, increase investment in the classroom, and provide tax relief to Mainers. State officials anticipate the plan will save the state $44 million in its first year of implementation.

“I agree with you that we can do better in the area of regionalization to reduce administrative costs,” Lucy Richard, SAD 1 board chairwoman, said Monday during a session with about 75 regional school officials. “But we’re already collaborating … I believe history shows that forced collaboration doesn’t work. If you take local control away from people, education will suffer.”

Baldacci responded by saying that regionalization efforts in Aroostook County are positive, but not enough.

“We need more of it to happen [in the state],” the governor said. “We can’t wait around for it anymore.”

Earlier in the day, the governor told a gathering of about 80 businesspeople at Northern Maine Community College that in a time when more money than ever is being spent on education in Maine while student enrollment is decreasing and administration positions are on the rise, the state must re-evaluate.

In response to Richard’s comment about local control, Baldacci said that everyone will have a say under his plan. Each of the 26 regional learning communities will have a board of directors based on “equal representation for everyone throughout the district.” The plan also calls for local advisory councils at every school, municipality or subregion — as determined by the regional board — to advocate for local needs and issues.

Several meeting attendees said they felt that was not enough local control: “Advisory” means advisory, one school official pointed out. Others worried about the short time frame of the plan, which would take effect by July 2008. Finally, school officials said that if the initiative is implemented, they wanted guarantees for the cost savings detailed in the plan.

State officials expect the move to affect not only cost savings in administration, but also efficiencies in special education, transportation, and maintenance and operation services. Baldacci said 55 percent of the savings will be reinvested in education and the remaining 45 percent will be used to provide property tax relief.

The governor said he has made it clear that the final plan approved by the Legislature — there are seven school regionalization and cost-efficiency bills before the Legislature now — must include significant, direct savings for local property taxpayers.

Baldacci and Gendron said early in the day that they were feeling positive about the response they had received so far in Aroostook County.

“In terms of collaboration, people in Aroostook County are already doing it. They understand it needs to be done,” the governor said. “But people in Aroostook County want to understand why [it needs to be done this way]. Our responsibility is to make sure we get out all the information on this.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, Bangor Daily News, Maine

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