School board considering realignment

By Suart Hedstrom

Staff Writer

MILO — With the capital improvement committee meeting and a facilities study by Stephen Blatt Architects of Portland nearing completion, SAD 41 officials have been thinking about what realignment across the district could look like.

“I think we want to talk about it in terms of the big picture,” Superintendent Michael Wright said during a Nov. 4 meeting at Milo Elementary.

Wright said the capital improvement committee recently had its final meeting with Blatt. “We talked about a potential realignment of our grades and schools at this meeting,” Wright said. “Let’s talk about how we got to where we are right now and do we want to incorporate a realignment plan.”

The superintendent said new boilers were installed in the Penquis Valley School complex in 2011. With estimates at the time saying the heating system in the building would need over $1 million in upgrades, SAD 41 officials began to think about what would be in the district’s best long-term interests with Penquis Valley and other aging buildings constructed multiple decades prior.

“We found out how near impossible it is to get on the new school list,” Wright said, saying this option was unlikely for replacing Penquis Valley. Instead, Wright said the committee discussed having one facility for pre-kindergarten through grade 12 and “we looked at the Penquis complex as the way to do that.” About $28,000 worth of work has been done to improve the lower level of the school, with more upgrades still to be finished.

Wright said board member Stacie Martin had a good point in comparing the costs to maintain or upgrade Penquis Valley to that of a brand new facility. Wright said Blatt is scheduled to have this financial information at the next committee meeting on Dec. 9.

In January the entire school board is scheduled to have a workshop with the architects before its regular meeting. Wright said based on this timeline, a public forum could be held at the end of the month on the directors’ plans for realignment.

“We want to remind ourselves of the reasons we talked about realignment,” Wright said, again mentioning costs to maintain buildings as well as adjacent portables and making best use of facility square footage.

Assistant Superintendent Stacy Shorey said in terms of curriculum, “It would be great if we were all in one space.” Having the entire grade 5 student body in one location, she added, is a concept that is being discussed by district officials for the renovated lower level at Penquis Valley.

In 2013 SAD 41 went through a realignment process with the Marion C. Cook School in LaGrange becoming the home of the alternate and behavioral programs and pre-K moving to Milo Elementary. “Both of those were new educational programs for our kids and they both brought in a lot of money for our district,” Wright said about the offerings at the Cook School. He said two students from SAD 31 in Howland are currently in the behavioral program and three are enrolled in the alternate high school, resulting in about $100,000 in revenue.

“I think it’s been a good process so far,” Wright said.  He said “if everything went perfectly” then a possibility could be to have more public meetings in the spring and a referendum concerning the realignment could be held in November. If passed, construction could start in the 2017-18 school year.

“Then it’s a matter of can you phase it in?,” he said. “Does it make sense to realign in the interim or does it not make sense?”

Wright said there will still be questions to be answered even after the completion of the facilities study, as the board develops a plan for realignment.

In other business, the board discussed a federal Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) that enables qualifying school districts to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students — avoiding the possible stigma attached to the free or reduced meal program.

Wright said last year SAD 31 implemented the expanded program. He said districts can qualify if at least 40 percent of students would be directly CEP certified, based on factors including families qualifying for food stamps, being homeless, in the foster system or having migrant status.

District officials are looking to apply for the program in April based on those enrollment figures. “We would come back to you in the spring and say ‘these are the numbers, let’s go,’” Wright told the directors.

He also gave the school board an update on superintendent’s agreements, that enable students living in a school district, with their legal guardian(s), to attend classes elsewhere. Wright said the criteria is “what is in the best interest for the student” and he receives about 30-40 requests annually. He said if a transfer is turned down then the parent can then appeal to the Department of Education.

Some requests could be made for reasons such as a parent working in Bangor, and having a child attend school in that system would be more convenient. Wright said the granting of a superintendent’s agreement results in a loss of subsidy for the district.

“In many cases it’s legitimate and I have approved that, but I have to sift through all that,” he said. “They all require, or should require, time and effort.” He said requests are made most often at the start of the school year, and sometimes a parent will make the request in the morning and expect a decision by the afternoon.

“Everywhere it’s an issue and everywhere superintendents are trying to fight it,” he said, with school district leaders working with legislators.

With winter high school sports practices starting on Nov. 16, the school board made its coaching appointments for the 2015-16 season. Returning to the gym will be Jason Mills for the Patriots boys’ basketball team, Dawn McLaughlin for girls’ basketball and Tammy Murano for the Penquis cheering squad.