[Local-Maine-Schools] (no subject)

[RICHARD GOULD]

Good morning to all
    Scott Porter, Skip Greenlaw, Bob Webster, and I met with Sen. Libby Mitchell and her aide yesterday to discuss some of the major issues of the school bill.  We had a good discussion, but the results won't be known until the completed plan is written.

We discussed:
    School choice continuing for those systems that now have it.  According to the Senator, choice will be written into statute.  They also made it clear that choice will be available to those schools who now have choice, but do not have a formal contract with receiving schools.
    We discussed the issue of each district having at least one public school.  The reasoning behind this is that some receiving schools will not accept students with special needs.
    Local vote was discussed and the Sen. agreed with this.  Remember, local vote does not mean local control of local schools.  It means a municipality will have the vote to join or not join the proposed district.  
    We discussed the idea of local governance.  This is a sticky issue and I don't know what will happen.  Our position is that the towns should decide the organization of the districts for themselves, not be mandated by Augusta.  If three towns or districts want to join together for the purpose of consolidating administration, they should do it and have a governing board similar to Union governing board.  Yet they should still be able to control their individual schools units.
In others words, they should have choice, not mandates as long as they achieve the goal of saving tax dollars.
    The timeline was also discussed.  As it is plan exist presently, we would have a vote this year, but if we did not there is no penalty.  But the next year there would be a penalty.
    At this time, penalties have not been decided.  We strongly urged that penalties not be overly excessive.  (In the Rural Caucus meeting earlier, the Commissioner indicated that it is possible that penalties  could extend beyond administration to other areas as well).  The issue of penalties for minimum receivers was also discussed.
    The Super Union plan put forth by Scott was discussed and Libby said they are looking at it carefully.  Again, it should not be mandated, but should be an option that individual systems decide for themselves.  
    We brought up the problem of State mandates and how they should be reduced.  Libby wants us to make up a list of mandates that we believe should be removed.
    We also met with Ted of the Speakers staff and discuss the same issues with him.
   
 I think that the Rural Caucus is still pretty solid.  I spoke with many of them and urged them to remain firm in their support of their constitutions.  Most of them seem solid, but it is tough to go against Leadership and that is why it is vital to stay in touch with them.  Time is growing short and we need to be ready to go to Augusta on short notice.  It looks like it will be the end of next week when this come up for vote, but that is only a guess as it could be sooner or later.  Gail Marshall suggests that we all contact our Legislators and ask for a private meeting to discuss our positions.  Good idea.  I am developing a list of Senators who I think are in our camp and well get this to you ASAP.  I am off today to go to my Grandson's graduation from college, so I won't be around for a couple of days, but you can reach me at 207.280.0757 if you need me.

Dick
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