Education Commissioner Susan Gendron answers questions about changes to the state’s school consolidation law.—STAFF PHOTO BY JACQUELINE WEAVER

ELLSWORTH — Education Commissioner Susan Gendron was calm, but unyielding, May 22 when confronted with at times irate questions about the state’s school consolidation law.

The meeting at the Hancock County Technical Center is one of four she is holding to explain changes in the law. The others are in Farmington, Brunswick and Presque Isle.

Many of the testier questions last week came from members of the Maine Coalition to Save Schools, or its supporters. The coalition is collecting signatures to trigger a voter referendum on repealing the law.

“This law was predicated on the assumption that this would save millions of dollars,” said Lawrence “Skip” Greenlaw of Stonington, chairman of the coalition. “There will be no cost savings.”

Gendron said a school consolidation plan approved for Falmouth SAD 61, which is reorganizing into the New Casco Bay School District, was a very good example of the consolidation law in action. The new entity includes Falmouth, Cumberland, and North Yarmouth.

The Casco Bay regional school unit (RSU) plan includes a “wish list” intended to save money and enhance education. The list includes such options as traveling teacher positions for specialty courses, such as in languages and mathematics.

“They showed this is how we’re going to save money and maintain educational quality,” said Gendron, adding that the dwindling number of students in Maine necessitates drastic action.

“We have been losing 4,000 students a year since I’ve been commissioner,” she said.

The goal of reorganization is to consolidate Maine’s schools into no more than 80 districts. So far, 19 plans have been approved. Of that number, 13 groups are exempt because of their size, configuration, or for other reasons, said David Connerty-Marin, a spokesman for Gendron.

Ben Wootten, a member of the Blue Hill Regional Planning Committee, said the state was vague about what school districts need to do in order to meet the law’s criteria.

The regional planning committee in Blue Hill includes several members who are supportive of the repeal efforts.

“You say, ‘It doesn’t meet our standards,’” said Wootten.

“‘We ask, ‘What are your standards?’”

“You say, ‘We can’t tell you,’” he said.

There were many questions about a new provision allowing for the creation of an alternative organizational structure (AOS) as an option to the regional school unit (RSU).

Gendron said the AOS, among other things, gives districts more wiggle room in setting teacher salaries, particularly in instances where salaries vary widely from town to town.

“If in our particular case we can show that your recipe does not work, would you be willing to sit down and evaluate [an alternative] with us?” Wooten asked.

“There is nothing in the legislation that allows me to approve another plan” other than the two stipulated, Gendron said.

She methodically moved through a printed PowerPoint presentation and took questions as she went along.

There were about 40 school superintendents, members of regional planning committees and other interested parties present.

Machias-area School Union District 102 Superintendent Scott Porter said even with the alternative structure, the state subsidy will be delivered in one lump sum and towns will have to decide how to divide it.

He said his towns are worried about getting their fair share.

“They want to get what is due them,” Porter said. “They don’t want to pay someone else’s bill. They don’t want someone else to pay their bill.”

School Union District 96 Superintendent Bill Webster said the six towns in his Flanders Bay Community School District stretch over 40 miles, from Franklin to the west and Steuben to the east.

“One of my concerns are the two towns on the extreme ends,” he said, who are members of the same community school district (CSD) but might want to partner with different entities.

Gendron told Webster she would ask the attorney general’s office if it is possible to allow one town or more within a CSD to break off and partner with another district.

Webster said later he also is concerned that under the AOS, which is drawing more interest, that the newly constituted district could maintain a union-like and separate structure at the local level, yet have to present as one entity when reporting to the state.

“We are adding further to the work of the central office,” he said. “That is a recipe for a lot of challenges.”

A proposed plan is due to the state by November in order to be finalized by Dec. 15. The plan must go to a voter referendum on or before Jan. 30.

The penalties for not complying include a 50 percent reduction in system administration allocation. In addition, any school unit that votes against reorganization would receive less favorable consideration for approval and funding for school construction.

Gail Marshall, chairman of the regional planning committee for School Union District 98 on Mount Desert Island, attended the meeting with Brian Hubbell, a committee member.

Marshall said later that the AOS provision allows schools to maintain their independence as long as they have centralized administrations for everything from superintendent to a business office.

Their district, she said, already functions that way.

In addition, “We have a collective bargaining agreement that is the same in every one of the major schools in our union,” Marshall said. “Last time we bargained at the same time in the same room and came up with a common contract that is actually five individual contracts.”

The MDI district has been cited as the gold standard for others to follow, but Marshall said neither she nor her fellow committee members see it that way.

“We are like everyone else, back to the drawing board,” she said. “We hope by mid-June when our lawyer is available to us to have a template for what we’d like our plan to look like and then start developing that as efficiently as possible.”

“It’s a tough thing everyone is facing here,” Marshall added. “We have been called the model or the standard, but I don’t want anyone to come away with the idea that that is our description of ourselves or that we presume what we might do here is a model that would work best for their school systems. Our goal all along has been to preserve local control.”