Freeport Families for Education

The Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC presented their Consolidation Plan last Thursday at the Freeport High School Library.  The meeting was taped for later broadcast - so it should be on channel 4 or 15 at some point (is there somewhere a posted schedule for those replays?).  The RPC had presented the previous night in Pownal and will present again on Tuesday night (March 18) in Durham.

All of these presentations are open to the public, so if you are interested, please consider going to the meeting at Durham Elemenary School on Tuesday, March 18 at 7:00PM

This is a high-level summary of what was presented.  As usual, if folks see oversights or errors, please post them to the email list.  I have abridged what was covered to highlight the substantive points - please feel free to emphasize others if desired.

PLEASE NOTE: In the interest of full disclosure, there are several assertions presented by the RPC (and reported below) that I believe are false and misleading.  Personally, I am firmly against a consolidation as presented by the RPC.  I will try to present an unbiased report below and share my personal thoughts in separate emails.

The presentation was divided into 5 sections and presented via projected slides:

• Schedule & Process
  • Schedule
  • • Final plan due to Commissioner of Education on March 28, 2008
    • Towns vote on consolidation June 10, 2008
    • November, 2008 - RSU Board of Directors elected
    • July 1, 2009 - RSU begins
  • If one (or more) towns reject the plan in June, there is a “recovery” process that involves the Department of Education “helping” the towns to see if the consolidation can be made palatable.  It will then be voted on again.
• Quality of Educational Services Subcommittee
  • The QOE subcommittee reported out that there could be some opportunities presented by consolidation for improving the education of the towns’ children.
  • They subcommittee recommended enhanced programming and additional staff to take advantage of the opportunities presented.
• Governance
  • The law requires that the governance of the RSU be set up in proportion to the voter populations in each town.
  • The Governance subcommittee came up with the following Board structure to govern the RSU:
    • Freeport - 6 board directors - 98 “votes” per director
    • Durham - 3 board directors - 98 “votes” per director
    • Pownal - 2 board directors - 58 “votes” per director
  • The reason Pownal’s directors have 58 votes is because their population, in proportion to the other towns, dictates that they didn’t have sufficient “votes” to have more than one director, but the committee decided that a town should not be represented by only one director to prevent against absence etc.
  • The Governance committee also came up with a budget of $74,275 for “transition costs” - like legal, software consolidation, etc.  This cost will be divided:
    • Freeport - 50% of startup costs
    • Durham - 30% of startup costs
    • Pownal - 20% of startup costs
    • (These proportions may be off - they aren’t written in the presentation)
• Employment and Collective Bargaining
  • This committee was responsible for coming up with the plan to deal with school choice
  • While the details were not part of the handout, essentially choice will be phased out over seven years by the towns that currently have choice.  During that time, however, children will be tuitioned out to both pubilc and private schools and buses will be provided for a portion of that time.
• Finance, Property & Cost Savings
  • Property
    • All Real and Personal Property (that’s buildings (real) and books, computers etc (personal)) will be transferred into the RSU - including all title, etc
    • The property will revert to the municipality once it’s not being used for school purposes.
  • Cost Sharing
    • Costs in excess of state funded and state required contributions (otherwise known as Essential Programs and Services, EPS), will be divided among the towns as follows:
      • Freeport 66%
      • Durham 21.4%
      • Pownal 12.6%
    • These percentages will remain fixed without respect to changes in school enrollment, valuation or any other factors.
    • The RSU board will be able to alter this allocation after 3 years by a 2/3 majority vote.
  • Cost Savings
    • The Finance Committee showed a spreadsheet based on the following assumptions:
      • Durham students are currently tuitioned out at $7700
      • It would cost $4000 to educate those students at the RSU high school (????)
      • Therefore there is a 3700 savings per Durham student brought into the RSU high school
      • The consolidation would result in $100,000 in annual administrative cost savings.
    • The presenter indicated that the savings could be used as tax-relief or for additional programming.
    • The spreadsheet indicated that if those assumptions were true, the consolidated district would save more than $500,000 per year after the 5th year.

The public then responded with many questions and critiques of the plan.  I’ll try to summarize the critiques in a separate email - my hands are tired…

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Greetings Families:

Another Freeport town meeting on School Consolidation has been announced - see below for the details.  It’s my understanding that immediately after this town meeting the School Committee will be convening to vote on sending the consolidation plan ( a.k.a “interim report”) to the Department of Education.  The document being submitted should be available for public review earlier that day as it will be completed the night before at the usual RPC meeting.  Whew!

Please save the date - this is an important one!  We’ll update later on availability of childcare etc.

Community Forum on School Consolidation
Thursday, November 29, 2007
6:30-8:00PM
Freeport Performing Arts Center Holbrook Street

The Freeport School Committee is preparing to file an interim report with
the Department of Education – due December 1st  - on the status of
consolidation planning. At the community forum, the School Committee and
RPC members will share results of
consolidation work to date and offer an opportunity for public comment.

If you cannot attend but would like to submit comments, e-mail
elaine_tomaszewski@coconetme.org

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The Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC met last Wednesday night @ 7PM. The Freeport RPC delegation met before the meeting at 6:30PM. Several folks from Freeport were present for both meetings.

Freeport RPC delegation meeting:

Bob the state representative was present for the meeting, and the Freeport RPC delegation quizzed him on certain issues:

• School Choice Vouchers - Bob indicated that Freeport insisting on equity with Durham on school choice vouchers would essentially be equivalent to “opting out” of the process. Because the law “protects” choice going into a consolidation, Freeport has no standing to require that Durham surrender this right prior to consolidation. Freeport can request that Durham relinquish school choice, but if they won’t and this becomes a “deal-breaker,” Freeport could incur penalties, etc from the state for non-compliance with the law.
• Options - Bob indicated that there had been a lot of confusion about how much the December 1 submission “locks in” the configuration. He indicated that the latest word from the Department of Education was that the December 1 submission would not necessarily prevent a school district from switching to a different pre-approved consolidation configuration. However, because Freeport does not have any other available pre-approved consolidation configurations, the December 1 deadline effectively locks Freeport in to a Durham/Freeport/Pownal configuration. Durham is in a more flexible position, as they could still technically decide (should Brunswick be open to it) to consolidate with Brunswick.

Durham/Freeport/Pownal meeting:

• The beginning of the meeting covered several questions from the public. Bob had prepared the answers and read them to the group. There was little discussion about the answers or the questions.
• At Rick White’s request, Bob reiterated the state’s position on school vouchers and on the significance of the December 1 deadline (see above).
• Bob presented the proposition that Durham students that exercise choice to attend a different school would be a net benefit to the school system because Durham would pay into the system as if the student was at Freeport High, but the student would be tuitioned out for less than that amount. This would, according to Bob, accrue the difference to the benefit of the RSU. Paul <?> from Pownal pointed out that if these students choose to attend another high school, the majority of the costs of operating the local school won’t be reduced. So the state’s logic doesn’t hold in the real world of fixed costs of running a high school.
• Bob presented the final word from the state on how the RPC recommended plan will be submitted to the state. The RPC will create the plan document which will be submitted to the town school committees. Each committee will vote - not to “approve” the plan - but just to approve submitting the plan to the state. One plan will then be submitted from the RPC group once all town school committees have voted to submit it. Previously the understood process was that each school committee would individually the plan to the state.
  • Governance
    • The governance group took a look at several state-suggested methods for creating a governance/voting structure for the RSU. The board structure that the group examined (but didn’t finally settle on) is as follows:
      • Freeport - 6 seats
      • Durham - 3 seats
      • Pownal - 2 seats
    • This arrangement gives higher representation on the board to Durham and Pownal than proportional to the populations of the respective towns, but it was decided that was appropriate because if Pownal had only one seat, they wouldn’t be represented should that individual not be present at the meeting.
    • Each director would vote effectively in proportion to their town’s population divided by the number of directors for that town. So the town’s voting power is in proportion to the town’s population. The town’s representation (number of bodies) on the board is intended to be roughly proportional to population.
  • Contracts
    • The group spent much of it’s time talking about contract end dates and how the committee would recommend renewing contracts to make all of the teacher, bus, and other contracts unite in the new RSU. The Superintendent from Durham/Lisbon directed the discussion during this period, and there was little debate within the group.
    • There was a lot of discussion around how the busing contracts would be worked out. Freeport owns its buses and doesn’t have any contracts. The other towns contract with a third party for buses and/or drivers.
    • The group touched on the topic of school choice. Rick White indicated that the latest information from Bob had changed his position on this issue. Marg suggested that the issue requires further discussion and should still be open to further debate.
    • The group also touched briefly on cost-sharing algorithms. While the state law is clear that cost sharing for “above EPS costs” must be done on the basis of relative state property valuations, the Department of Education has encouraged RPCs to put together cost sharing plans which work for them, as the law is likely to be softened in the next legislative session. There was some discussion around whether the fact that Freeport has a significant commercial sector meant that Freeport should pay into the RSU at a higher rate per town pupil than other communities.
  • Finance
    • The finance committee met but I was not in the room so cannot report on that committee’s progress. Could someone else who was in the finance subcommittee please write a quick summary?
• The group broke into subcommittees:
• The group came back together for a brief recap from the subcommittees and a 5-minute summary from Nelson Larkins on Freeport’s Town Meeting.

As always - if anyone has any additional points I have missed - or corrections. Please email the mailing list.

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Greetings Families:

First of all - please come to the Freeport Town Forum tonight @ 6:30PM @ Morse Street Cafeteria.  This consolidation process is a defining moment for education in Freeport and across the state.  Tonight will be a unique opportunity to learn from our community leaders about their positions on consolidation and voice your thoughts on the process.

Last night, Yarmouth convened its town meeting / straw-poll on consolidation.  At least Joe M., Melissa R. and I were there from the Freeport community.  I also saw Bob (the state facilitator) and Elaine from Freeport school administration.  Fred Palmer and Marge Migliaccio  were there from the Freeport Reorganization Planning Committee.  There may have been more folks from Freeport there, so I apologize if I’ve missed someone.

Here are some highlights of the forum:

• The Yarmouth High School auditorium was packed with people.  I’m not sure what the capacity of the room is, but it was standing room only.  I’d estimate >300 folks turned out.
• The Yarmouth RPC presented for an hour or so on the following points:
  • History of the consolidation law
  • Mechanics / requirements of the consolication law - it’s not just administration!
  • Committee sentiment from meetings with Y’s various possible consolidation partners
  • Analysis of financial impacts of Yarmouth’s various consolidation options
  • Lists of outstanding questions not yet resolved regarding consolidation
• The RPC members, on several occasions, mentioned that a group of active, concerned Freeport citizens had formed and they felt that was a great indication that folks here are working to support the priority of schools in the community.
• The presentation was objective - but did give a clear feeling that the Yarmouth RPC felt the best option for Yarmouth was to take their exemption.
• There was a period for public comment / question - the tone of the questions and comments were very oriented toward preserving the unique position of Yarmouth schools - and concern that consolidation of any sort could jeopardize that position.
• To ensure that their efforts best reflected the community will, the Yarmouth RPC polled the audience via a show of hands with three questions:
  • How many in favor of pursuing a consolidation with Falmouth, Cumberland, & North Yarmouth?
  • How many in favor of pursuing a consolidation with Freeport & Pownal?
  • How many in favor of taking the exemption and standing alone?
  • No hands went up for Falmouth, Cumberland & North Yarmouth
  • 3 hands (that I saw) went up for Freeport & Pownal
  • Every hand went up for Yarmouth standing alone.
• In addition to the show of hands, they also handed out and collected a paper “ballot” form which was to be used to get a quantified result of the polling.
• Even though the presentation effectively recommended a stand-alone option - and the audience voted strongly in that manner - it is important to note that the Yarmouth RPC members all indicated that an ongoing investigation of possible cooperation and “ultimately possible consolidation” with Freeport & Pownal would be in Yarmouth’s best interest and could be pursued once this round of consolidation was complete.

If anyone who was there has additional information to add, feel free to email the list!

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Greetings Families:

Last night, the Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC met at the Durham Elementary School. The portions of the meeting during which the group was all together were recorded and broadcast live in Durham. We still are not sure of the rebroadcast schedule in Freeport, but will continue trying to get that information.

Thank you to Julie, Melissa, Kristen, Joe, and Chris - who came out for the meeting from Freeport. There were no other members of the public present for the meeting.

Because the facilitator was running behind schedule, the meeting began with the subcommittee breakout work sessions. The overall RPC (with representatives from all three towns) is divided into three working committees roughly covering: Governance, Finance, Contracts / Other. I believe Melissa attended Finance, Kristen & Chris attended Governance, and Julie, Joe, & I attended the Contracts / Other meeting. I’ll briefly report on the discussion in the Contracts/Other subcommittee - Melissa, Kristen, and/or Chris, could one from each subcommittee please summarize the conversation in the group you attended?

Contracts / Other subcommittee:
The subcommittee met for approximately 1 hour and began to discuss some concrete issues that need to be put into the plan:

• Contracts - each school department may have existing contracts that will extend into the creation of the new RSU. These include external contracts with vendors ( e.g. busing, etc) as well as contracts with unioned employees. The group agreed that a manifest of contracts by functional area needs to be compiled and that the administrations of the towns could help compile that matrix.
• Central Office Organization - the superintendent from Durham explained the complex topology of partial positions that Durham participates in currently with Lisbon. Durham, essentially, has 30% of the central office and Lisbon has 70%. These proportions are divvied up based soley on pupil count of the two communities. The group agreed again that they needed to assemble detailed org-charts from the districts along with person hours in each position and expense to create a going-forward administration transition plan.
• School Choice - The last topic discussed in the Contracts/Other subcommittee was school choice. Members of the Freeport RPC indicated that there was some concern among Freeporters that having a choice disparity between the communities would be unfair. The Durham contingent to the committee indicated that Durham felt strongly about retaining its choice option. The Pownal contingent indicated that they felt it wasn’t a big deal in Pownal. Durham has no tuition contracts, Pownal may have one, but it is with Freeport. The committee asked the state facilitator to look into how other districts were dealing with the choice option. School choice amounts to full tuition to another public school, or as much as $7,800 per year toward tuition at a private school (those numbers may not be exactly correct, but it’s in that neighborhood). Durham provides the entire amount to folks electing to go to a private school, Pownal gives 50% for private school.

Full RPC meeting:
After the subcommittee breakouts, the full group reconvened. The group approved the minutes, then addressed the questions left from last meeting (there were none) and moved into the public comment period. Bob handed around printed copies of the 3 questions Julie Coleman submitted on behalf of Freeport Families for Education (see her email for details: http://www.freeportfamilies.org/pipermail/members/2007-October/000085.html). These questions formed the structure of the next few minutes of discussion - mainly about school choice. The nuggets of the conversation were

• Durham feels strongly that they want to retain their current right to school choice.
• The state facilitator indicated that there is no mechanism for removing school choice once the RSU is created - but that a community can elect to surrender school choice up until the date of consolidation. Joe suggested that a ballot measure relinquishing the school choice right could be on the same ballot as the acceptance of the consolidation plan.
• Durham proposed the following two measures to help alleviate the issues surrounding school choice:
  • Transportation would only be provided to the RSU schools - thus strongly encouraging the kids to go to the RSU schools and not take their “choice” option
  • Durham would pick up the additional costs of the students tuitioning out of the system - not the base cost, but to the extend it was more expensive to tuition out a student than to educate them in the system, Durham would be willing to make up the disparity.
• Julie and I spoke indicating that the cost and unity of student bodies were important issues, but that there is a fundamental fairness issue at play as well. If Durham parents have the option of deciding that the RSU school is not the right fit for their kid, they essentially get a discount on a private school or a free ticket to go to Brunswick (a high performing school) or elsewhere.
• Chris spoke indicating that this and other issues are critical issues and should be put on the table early in the process before the committee wastes time going forward if there is no deal to be had. Some members of the RPC agreed and the matter was put to rest for the moment with the agreement that the large group would address it again after the next subcommittee break-out next week.
• The question of cost-allocation was given to the Contracts/Other subcommittee and the Finance group indicated they’d be taking a look at it as well.
• The question of “alignment of vision” was given to the newly to be formed “academic opportunities” subcommittee (see below).

After that discussion, John Gleason’s suggestion of the formation of a fourth subcommittee (advisory only) to investigate academic impact of a consolidation was discussed. It was agreed that a 15-18 person subcommittee would be formed - largely comprising teachers, administrators, and some parents. This group would meet and discuss the academic vision of the possibly joining communities and try to establish an RSU vision. The group would report back to the RPC from time to time. Everyone agreed this was a good idea and will put it into place.

The full RPC also discussed formal involvement of the public on the subcommittees. The group decided quickly that direct involvement of the public as members on the subcommittees would not be allowed, but that public attendance at subcommittees was encouraged and the chair of the subcommittee would have discretion as to allowing input from the public during break-out sessions.

The meeting adjourned at 9:02 - Bob runs a tight ship!

Personal Note: This was the first meeting of the Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC where I felt actual issues were discussed rather than planning to make a plan. There is a lot of emotion about the school choice issue on all sides. The Durham contingent used the phrase “deal breaker” several times to describe how the Durham community feels about it. Freeport and Pownal RPCs felt there was some room for negotiation, but at the end of the day, the Freeport contingent did signal that the choice issue would have to be dealt with formally in some form or other.

This process will continue to be a lot of work for everyone involved in it. Our presence at these meetings is critical to making sure the community’s voice is heard in the process.

Thanks, again, to everyone for their energy and involvement! As always, feel free to email me directly or the entire list if you have questions, comments, or corrections.

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Greetings Families:

A group of us met last night at Gritty’s - there were about 18 adults and it seemed like twice as many kids!  We spent some time going over the “current state” of the RPC process and each person had a chance to share their thoughts and concerns about the process.  The discussion was lively and many different perspectives were shared.  If I may be so bold, here is what I heard the group largely agreeing on - please email the list if you have other thoughts:

• The consolidation process is moving too fast.  The Freeport RPC must carefully analyze options and ramifications with as much detail as possible before making final recommendations to the School Committee.
• The process should include more public communication and input - public meeting, written report, etc
• Freeport Families for Education is dedicated to insuring the strongest possible school system for Freeport kids.
• Gritty’s is not a great place to hold a meeting!  Next time we’ll do it at someone’s house

People held various opinions about the possible consolidation partners, but there wasn’t clear consensus about the pros/cons of the possible partners ( e.g. Yarmouth, Durham).  Consolidation with Pownal is largely accepted by the group as, in practice, Pownal and Freeport are already partially consolidated.  It was largely agreed that there isn’t enough information available to know the ramifications of a consolidation with any partner at this point.

Because of the likelihood that Yarmouth will elect to take its exemption and stand alone, much of the dialog of the meeting revolved around the RPCs efforts with the Durham/Freeport/Pownal consolidation configuration.  Some of the questions that came up include:

• Fairness of School Choice - Currently Pownal & Durham both have “school choice” the ability for parents to decide to send their kids to a private school or a different school system and the town will reimburse part of the costs of doing so.  The right is granted under a law that has been on the books for a while and is not affected directly by the consolidation law.  By default, if no action is taken, Pownal & Durham would continue to have school choice after a consolidation is consummated.  However, this doesn’t seem equitable to Freeport taxpayers and parents.  Can Freeport’s RPC find a solution to the school choice inequity?
• Fairness of Tax Burden - Under the current law, the “local share” of the school budget (which comprises the bulk of the budget b/c Freeport is minimum subsidy town) will be apportioned to the consolidated towns based exclusively on property value.  This places an undue burden on Freeport’s tax base as Freeport’s valuation is much higher than either partners.  In essence - assuming roughly the same school pupil populations - Freeport has 60% of the students of a DFP consolidation and pays 75% of the local share of the budget.  Can the Freeport RPC find a mechanism to address the tax-burden inequity?
• Alignment of Vision - Parents in Freeport are concerned that the existing Freeport school district is not performing up to the level it could be.  Given Freeport’s relative property wealth, performance below expectations is not acceptable.  There is an active group of Freeport citizens who want to work to improve the school system going forward.  How do our potential partners in Pownal and Durham feel about the priority of improving schools - perhaps including increased expenditure?

The meeting, unfortunately, had to adjourn before we discussed specific action items.

•  I did speak to several individuals and got the feeling that there is little support at this point for writing in candidates for either Town Council or School Committee - please speak up if you feel otherwise.
• We did not discuss email/telephone peppering organization
• We only briefly discussed the presence of FFE representatives at RPC meetings in the future.  Several folks indicated they would be attending upcoming Town meetings / RPC meetings / PTC meetings.  I’ll try to summarize the schedule and who’s going to which meeting under separate cover.
• Julie C. agreed to write up a list of talking points that members of the group can use to compose email to the RPC members, school committee members, town council members and/or discuss this issue with friends and neighbors

Please email the list if you have any additions or corrections to the above!  Discussion anyone?

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Greetings Families:

This morning @ 7:15AM, the Freeport/Pownal/Yarmouth RPCs met at the Yarmouth Headmaster’s office.  Thanks to Marianne and Joe M for getting up early to come!  Rich DeGrandprie (sp?) and a parent from Yarmouth were also present from the public.

The discussion was structured around the following major points:

• Cost allocation - the latest spreadsheet from the state was passed around.  The number, of course, changed from the last one I had seen.  The F/P/Y consolidation would result in a net benefit to Yarmouth of about $1.2MM, a net deficit to Freeport of about $1.1MM and a net deficit to Pownal of something like $100k (I don’t have the sheet in front of me so the actual numbers may be a bit different).
  • There was some discussion about how the cost sharing algorithm might be negotiable, but for right now the legislation says it is done exclusively on property value - so to assume a loosening of that may be presumptive.
• Public comment - there was a short period of public comment.  All of the Freeport reps said a few words.
• General discussion on areas of “leveling” between the districts
  • Freeport has full-day-K, Yarmouth does not
  • Yarmouth has 10 more teacher days (5 teaching / 5 prof. development)
  • Yarmouth has more AP, and more “special needs” kids support - in addition to the state regulated Special Ed budget
  • etc.
• During this period the following points were made (among others - anyone else who was there want to contribute?):
  • Yarmouth reaffirmed that they received their exemption and that the Commissioner is on the record indicating that she believes the exemption can’t be touched for three years.
  • Yarmouth indicated that they would be holding a town-meeting in the next 2 - 3 weeks to get quantitative input on the process
  • Freeport indicated that they were discussing the possibility of a town meeting as well, but didn’t have a timeline for it
  • Yarmouth indicated they don’t have any list of benefits to merging to present to their people - and furthermore don’t have any indication that they could indicate that Freeport would vote to support a consolidation that includes a $1.2MM uptick for no net benefit to Freeport residents.
  • Pownal made some noises that they feel a sense of loyalty to include Durham in any consolidation
  • Freeport declined to comment on their commitment level to Durham
  • Yarmouth indicated that they felt the discussions with Freeport were more open and direct than the discussions with their other potential partners.
  • There was some discussion on whether or not to reconvene before Y’s town meeting or not - I think it was left that the superintendents would see if there was anything substantive that might come of that.

Personal note: It is interesting to note the dramatic difference in the tone and style of the Durham/Freeport/Pownal (DFP) RPC meetings and the Freeport/Pownal/Yarmouth (FPY) meetings.

In DFP meetings, Bob, the facilitator, does most of the talking and it is all about structuring the plan and how to go about making the consolidation plan.  There is little input from RPC members, little (if any) discussion of what it “means” to consolidate and NO discussion about the fact that Freeport or Durham might be considering other options.  The subcommittees meeting last week also focused (as you would expect) on planning and charting out how they would execute the punchlist of tasks handed out by the state.  The general tone is goal/task oriented - rather than contemplative and analytical.  To date there has been no opportunity for public input in these meetings

In the FPY meetings, most of the talking is done by the committee members.  The discussion points seem to be more about understanding the dynamic between the communities and what the concerns are, how the numbers play out, what the assumptions are in the numbers, etc.  Committee members ask questions that are answered by other committee members.  Ideas are brought out and discussed.  There is always opportunity for public input.

As a bystander of this process, it is hard to understand that the DFP meetings will yield a plan that is the result of a group of informed individuals communicating thoroughly to create a vision for merging the communities.  It feels, instead, that the group will efficiently orient itself to making a plan that may satisfy the letter of the law, but doesn’t bring much in the way of understanding the “philosophical alignment” of the communities with respect to willingness to prioritize and pay for education.

To my mind the FPY meetings express much more the sense of informed group of representatives discussing the various options - and it is more likely to result in a relationship that is mutually beneficial - maybe not consolidation as it is required by the law, but some mutually beneficial, cooperation which delivers better education for fewer dollars.  It’s too bad these conversations weren’t occurring under different circumstances.

I’m off to Baxter State Park for a weekend away, but I’ll be back again on Sunday night.  Have a good weekend all!

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Greetings Families:

Here’s a summary of the latest events in the ongoing school consolidation process. Please feel free to email the list if you feel any of this is inaccurate or incomplete.

• Tuesday, October 9 - School Committee Meeting: Thank you to the folks that came to the meeting. I wasn’t able to make it, so I don’t have names - couldn’t recognize the backs of heads on the TV. John Gleason gave a status report to the School Committee on the progress of Consolidation. He indicated that Yarmouth had received official word that they qualify for exemption under the high-performing/high-efficiency school clause in the law. John then proceeded to describe some of the decisions made by the Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC - that they would shoot to have a plan ready by December 1 and they were breaking in sub-committees to do the work to build the consolidation plan. Chris Leighton reminded the group that the RPC has 4 configurations to examine: Freeport/Pownal stand alone (paying the penalties), Freeport/Pownal as a donut hole, Freeport/Pownal/Durham, and Freeport/Pownal/Yarmouth. Not much new there. Did anybody else see something different?
• Wednesday, October 10 - Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC - The group met again last night from 7 until 9:15 at Pownal’s Elementary school (apparently the only single-building K-8 school in the state). EDIT: Thank you to Joe Mig., and Marianne for coming to the meeting last night.  Freeport had 3 members of “the public” present and there was one person from Pownal there as well.  Once again, the meeting was dominated by the state representatives trying to describe the law, potential changes, and encouraging folks to move the process along. They DID stress the point several times that this is a dynamic process. That there will not be complete information from the state before the December 1 deadline. Things like cost allocation mechanisms and state reimbursement calculations may change. The group broke into subcommittees on Governance, Finance, and Contracts/Other. The subcommittees had only 20 minutes to do any work before they had to reconvene - most of that was spend organizing how to pull together the information needed to create a consolidation plan. The did decide on the following points as a group:
  • That there will be 10 minutes at the start of every RPC meeting for public comment
  • That there will be further time at the start of every RPC meeting for questions submitted by email
  • There *may* be a chance for members of the public to serve on the subcommittees (to be discussed at the next meeting)
  • There *may* be an additional advisory committee formed to explore “Educational Opportunities” that might be populated by teachers and the public (to be discussed at the next meeting)
  • There was a video camera at the meeting - we have not yet discovered how to figure out when the tapes will be broadcast.

Upcoming meetings:

• Elaine T mentioned a PTC meeting tonight @ Freeport Middle School??, but I can’t find it on the school department calendar. I think this would feature Chris Leighton talking about consolidation. I’ll look into it and get back with more details.
• Freeport/Pownal/Yarmouth RPC meeting - Friday, October 12 @ 7:15 AM - please see the www.freeportfamilies.org website for a map and details.
• Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC meeting - Wednesday, October 17 @ 7:00PM
• Mast Landing PTC meeting - Wednesday, October 17 @ 7:00PM

We’ve got to keep the pressure on here, folks. If we do not encourage the process to include a thorough analysis then we will end up with a Durham/Freeport/Pownal consolidation plan with no alternatives considered. This is an inflection point that could dramatically change the future of public schools in Freeport. Let’s make sure our voices are being heard and our officials are making the best decisions for the community!

Tags: School Consolidation // 2 Comments »

Wow - a lot can happen in a couple of days. Here’s the latest update as far as I can see. Anybody have anything else to add?

• Yarmouth has received official word that it qualifies for exemption from the consolidation law due to its “high-performing, high-efficiency” status… For now… It is clear that the state is not happy with this exemption and has expressed an intent to alter the qualifications or possibly do away with the exemption altogether. Whatever the situation, Yarmouth will likely feel increasing pressure to consolidate or risk losing state funding. Of course, they have stated in the past that because their state contribution is small, they may decide to “eat” that loss out of their own taxbase.

• Last night, the Durham/Freeport/Pownal RPC had its first meeting. Thanks to Melissa, Julie, Gretchen, Joe, Heather, and others who sat patiently through a two hour meeting of the three community contingents. The meeting mainly consisted of detailed examination of the law as well as a “getting to know you” game played by the RPC members. The points of interest were:
  • The meeting was recorded for broadcast on the cable channel. We are looking into the timing of the rebroadcasts and the possibility of getting a copy of the recording if folks are interested in seeing it
  • There was no period for public comment whatsoever. Despite their being 8 or so of “the public” who had made arrangements to be in the room for the entire 2 hours, there was no opportunity for the public to address the assembled RPCs. Questions submitted in writing to the facilitator were not addressed during the course of the meeting.
  • There were several documents which were not made available to the public because there were “copyright law” issues with handing them out.
  • As one might expect, the state provided facilitator was driving the group towards an aggressive timeline for creating a consolidation plan. What was surprising was that nobody objected or pushed back on this.
  • In fact, the group decided to set the accelerated goal of working towards creating a Freeport/Pownal/Durham consolidation plan to meet a timeline that would allow implementation of the consolidation in July 2008. This date is a full year head of the requirement set forth in the law.
  • Durham contingent, in conversation after the meeting, communicated that they have, indeed, cut off discussions with Brunswick.

• Freeport Families for Education Executive Committee - We are looking for a “few good people” who can dedicate some time to meeting occasionally and sharing the work involved with keeping the Freeport Families for Education going. If you would like to volunteer for this committee, please email me ( pete@pmurray.com) or Kim (kim@pmurray.com) directly, ASAP. We need to convene this group next week as things are moving fast.

• Upcoming meetings: There are several that we are aware of at this point:
  • Tuesday, October 9 @ 7PM @ Freeport Town Hall - Freeport School Committee Meeting - no agenda available at this point
  • Wednesday, October 10 @ 7PM @ Pownal ?? - Next meeting of the Freeport/Pownal/Durham RPC - this will be the first working session and will be largely broken out into sub-committees working on various aspects of creating the consolidation plan.
  • Friday, October 12 @ 7:15AM @ Yarmouth Superintendents Office on McCartney Road - Meeting of Yarmouth/Freeport/Pownal RPCs - Follow up meeting to examine financial implications of possible consolidation.

Personal note: I was, quite frankly, shocked at the way the Freeport RPC contingent comported itself at the meeting with Durham and Pownal last night. Independent discussions with several of the RPC members gave me the impression that the Freeport contingent would gently communicate that Freeport is not on a fast-track path to consolidation. I was pretty sure that the message would be that Freeport’s RPC was going to go through a phase of analysis before committing to any particular course of action. That the concept of “putting together a plan” would come after more information was on the table on which to base a decision as to what was best for the community. Aren’t we, after all, still technically in discussions with another possible configuration?

When Freeport RPC members not only didn’t push back on an accelerated timeline, they “thought creatively” about how the process could be accomplished in the shortest possible timeframe, I felt betrayed and misrepresented. This Freeport/Pownal/Durham consolidation clearly has a significant amount of momentum behind it - even though nobody on our RPC or anywhere else can enumerate thoughtful rationale for the town to consolidate under this configuration. Essentially, it appears to be a foregone conclusion that consolidation is a “good thing” and should be done without question with whomsoever is willing to do it with us.

My biggest concern is that Freeport will end up in a situation where it is hobbled in its ability to bring the school system our kids are attending up to the level of excellence we expect and deserve. This endeavor, after many long years of tight budgetary controls by Freeport town council, will have a component of increased spending to it. If we want to have a high performing school system, it may take a significant increase in the school budget over several years to make that happen. It seems to me the one blessing of this law is that it will wrest control of the school budget from the hands of the Freeport town council and put it back in the hands of the people themselves. I am confident that Freeport voters will support appropriate investment into the school system to improve its performance. Consolidating with districts based on crude financial studies that show Durham and Pownal to be the “cheapest” alternatives is irresponsible at this stage and possibly threatens the potential growth and improvement of our own district.

Perhaps these are just the raves of someone too close to the situation to see it clearly. What do YOU think?

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Here is the latest information that I know about - anybody have anything to add?

• Freeport Families for Education was mentioned in last Sunday’s Portland Press Herald. Apparently we are one of the only communities around to have organized about this issue. Gooooooooo Freeport!

• Last week, on Friday, Chris Leighton, Freeport’s Chair of the School Committee, delivered to the Department of Education the attached letter clarifying that Freeport is in active discussions with Yarmouth. This was a good gesture - and due in large part to Freeport Families for Education’s gentle encouragement!

• Last week, on Thursday, the Durham School Committee held an “emergency meeting” to discuss how to interpret the close straw poll the community had taken a few days earlier. They voted to continue discussions with Freeport & Pownal. I am not sure if this means they have cut of talks with Brunswick. FFE encouraged Freeport leadership to be square with Durham about our discussions with Yarmouth, etc. It would be too bad for Durham to “go steady” with us if we are “dating around” - to continue the wretched analogy…

• Last week the state bent over backwards to emphasize that the December 1 “deadline” is not that at all. Rather, RPCs are to submit progress reports on December 1 - which can be of varying degrees of completion. There is no need to rush to slap together a plan at this point! Norm Higgins repeatedly told me “take your time” and make sure to do all of the analyses thoroughly before committing to a consolidation.

• Wednesday night @ 7PM @ Morse Street School will be the first “official” convening of the Freeport/Pownal/Durham RPC. This will be an important meeting. It is critical that Freeport’s representatives are focusing on a thorough analysis of a possible merger - and not on generating a fast-track plan under the gun. We’ve got to keep showing up to let them know folks are engaged in the process.

• We are working on a website (www.freeportfamilies.org) and will hopefully be able to transfer out of the Google groups system shortly. Please stay tuned. If anyone is familiar with community website development (Drupal, CiviCRM) please let me know.

On a personal note: the more I learn about this issue, the more I feel it is critical that the parents of Freeport continue to be engaged and present in this process. Freeport is on the eve of release from the tight fiscal collar of the town council and will have an opportunity to invest in its school system again. This could be a chance for the town to get out ahead of the school system performance problems it is wrestling with - and begin to lay the foundation for a truly great system. If the wrong decisions are made in this consolidation effort, we could be exchanging the frying pan for the fire. These decisions must be made in an open, transparent, and deliberate fashion to ensure we have the flexibility to invest in our childrens’ future without undue burden or constraint.

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