[Local-Maine-Schools] independent and vocational schools

[Ralph Chapman]

At yesterday's Apropriations Subcommittee reporting session, I heard
one legislator thank the subcommittee for protecting the independent
schools.  In today's Sun Journal, staff writer Jessica Alaimo states
"Career and technical education centers will not be affected under the
proposal..."

>From my simplistic analysis, both independent schools and vocational
(now called career and technical education, or CTE) schools are in
trouble with the legislation coming out of the Appropriations
Committee.

If every new super-district has at least one public high school, and
if the super-district board controls which students may attend which
schools, I think that it follows that the independent schools will
suffer declining enrollments as more and more students are directed to
the public school to keep it filled.  Am I missing something here?

The CTE schools are currently operated by Cooperative Boards whose
members are publicly elected school committee members from the
regional school units.  The Cooperative Boards are dismantled by the
proposed legislation along with the local boards.  What will replace
them?  Since there are 26 CTE regions and approximately 80 new
super-districts, there will necessarily be several super-districts for
each CTE region.  Who will control the CTE school and decide which
students may attend?  The proposed legislation is silent on the new
administration of the CTE schools.  Or am I missing something here,
also?

Ironic that the one example of an efficiently working regional
educational system should be a victim to the new regionalization
efforts coming from Augusta.

--Ralph Chapman