[Local-Maine-Schools] Education Committee: January 3, 2008

[lwill at earthlink.net]

Hello Brian, thank you so much for these reports- they are so helpful.              Lynne Williams
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "Brian Hubbell" <sparkflashgap at gmail.com>

Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 18:15:21 
To:"MDI RPC" <rpc at u98.k12.me.us>, local-maine-schools at mainetalk.org
Cc:"Desjardins, David" <David.Desjardins at legislature.maine.gov>,Dick Spencer <rspencer at dwmlaw.com>
Subject: [Local-Maine-Schools] Education Committee: January 3, 2008


Perhaps like a diver marking a second approach to an underheated pool,
the Education Committee does not yet seem energized by its prospects
for the next few weeks.

This afternoon began with Senator Bowman postponing until next week
further discussion of LD 1392, the DoE's previously worked-over bill
to ameliorate some of the express impediments of the consolidation
law.  This is largely any real deliberation is foreshadowed by
tomorrow's parade of legislators coming before the committee to
outline what each thinks are the problems with the law.

So, for this afternoon, the Committee stuck to its planned agenda of
hearing a report from the Commissioner on the present "progress of
implementation", which, as a term of art, has a sufficiently neutral
velocity to adequately infuse the present standstill with a certain
flavor of optimism.

As of this afternoon, detailed maps of the proposed RSUs, the
Commissioner reports, are still in production.  However, she did
present the tabulated summaries that the department released before
Christmas [For our edition of this data, see:
http://mdischools.net/20071220_DoE_ResponsesSummary.htm].

In addition, the Commissioner presented some summaries of the
"barriers and impediments" that RPCs itemized in their plans, along
with the Department's compilation of what sections of the respective
checklists were adequately substantiated in the accumulated
reorganization plans.

Preponderantly inadequately addressed, according to the Commissioner,
was the section on administrative savings and assurance of lack of
impact on educational quality.  Of the 46 reorganization plans
submitted, the Commissioner said, ten identified the administrative
savings as "a barrier".  The remaining plans didn't address the
savings at all.

This prompted Representative Muse to ask how the RPCs were expected
adequately to document "lack of adverse impact".  The Commissioner
responded that several districts with alternative plans were presently
working "on the cutting edge" of this and that one reorganizing
district -- Freeport/Durham -- was making on the verge of exciting
breakthroughs in this department, presumably by recognizing new
educational opportunities that could be realized through
regionalization and not mere 'lack of impact'.

The majority of RPCs, the Commissioner admitted, are now largely
waiting to see what direction the legislature takes.

Other than that, the Commissioner's summary didn't prompt much comment
from Committee members, except for Representative Finch who took the
opportunity to ask the Commissioner if she had the final say, without
appeal, in ruling whether new districts qualified for the 1200-2500
range under demographic and geographical exception.

To this, the Commissioner answered simply that, yes, hers was the last
word.  Representative Finch then asked her if she could understand why
that might make some uncomfortable.  The Commissioner acknowledged
this as perhaps an unintended aspect of the law and the Rep Finch said
he'd then leave his questioning on the matter as a statement.

Senator Bowman thanked the Commissioner and Department staff for the
well-organized summary which he described as "logically presented, in
a rich, dense fashion."

After this, the Commissioner went on with a preliminary report,
advanced at the Committee's request ahead of the Jan 31 statutory
deadline, on what the Department now saw as shortcomings in the
current law.

While Mount Desert Island was never named out loud by either the
Commissioner or Committee members, the Commissioner did refer to its
plan as the single one turned down on account of "governance
structure".

So, not surprisingly to those with a scorecard, the two sections of
the law that the Commissioner first advised as requiring clarification
were Section 1478, regarding school governance and the powers and
duties of local school committees and Section 1481, regarding school
financing by individual municipalities within an RSU.

These sections, the Commissioner said, were vexingly "vague" even
though the Assistant Attorney General had advised the Department that
they could not be used to construe conveying any real authority from
RSU oversight to local boards.

As the Commissioner described the legislative intent behind the
section as she "had conversations about how it was envisioned", local
boards were to have particular "advisory" functions regarding policy,
teachers, and curriculum.

"So, the local boards could make policy?", Representative Edgecomb asked.

"Well, no, the RSU board has authority over policy," the Commissioner answered.

"Local boards recommend teachers for hiring?" Representative
Sutherland asked.  "I thought that was usually done by the
Superintendent. Is that a common practice some places now?"

"Local board members could sit on search committees," the Commissioner
said, "and advise the principal."

Regarding the finance section 1481, the Commissioner said that the law
allowed municipalities, but not local school committees, to direct
spending to local schools above what the RSU provided "for example,
for arts, or an after-school program".

Once again, the Commissioner reported that this authority given to
municipalities explicitly for K-8 schools maybe should be extended so
towns could individually contribute to their own high schools as well
-- although the mechanism for how this would be accomplished remained
plainly unspecified.

According to the Commissioner, other matters the Department would
raise in their report were:
* Whether voters in municipalities with alternative plans should be
given the same opportunity to vote as those with reorganization plans.
* Simplifying the referendum requirement (in response to Geoff
Herman's itemization) so that only a single referendum vote is
required, no matter the final budget relation to EPS.
* Building the cost of budget referenda into EPS allocations
* (After consulting with Dick Spencer), the Commissioner is
recommending allowing RSUs a method to raise funds to "operationalize"
to pay for their initial elections and start-up costs.
* Acknowledging that present Community Technical Education boundaries
will have to change to reflect new RSU boundaries.

Senator Mitchell asked if, after the number of RPCs that had
identified debt transfer as an impediment, the Department was
considering recommending that local only debt stay with the present
municipality unless explicitly negotiated into the new RSU.
Commissioner said no -- that forward-thinking groups were seeing
assimilation of debt as having long-term advantages to the new
districts.

Representative Muse asked if there were going to be recommendations to
allow mechanism for parties to withdraw from RSUs.  Commissioner
answered that this was a policy question as could effect RSUs
shrinking below 2500/1200 students and becoming "unsustainable."  So,
"there should be consequences."

Representative Harlow remains firmly indignant that the law requires
the additional expense of budget referenda.  This should be a matter
for municipalities (Portland, in Harlow's case) to decide.  Rep Harlow
says this matter is as important to him as "local control" is to rural
areas.

Representative Sutherland complimented the Commissioner for coming up
to Sutherland's district in Aroostook "all by herself" and facing a
hostile crowd with poise.

The Commissioner was then excused and the Committee again reviewed its
work plan as outlined yesterday.

Senator Mills, who had been silent until this point, again suggested
that the Committee use some of its work sessions in the next two weeks
to engage representatives and stakeholders from different regions "to
find out what's happening on the ground."  Mills said he'd also like
very much to hear from the MEA their suggestions of ways to reconcile
the problem of regional differences in teacher salaries.

Representative Sutherland cautioned that if the Committee extends
invitations, they won't hear from "the people in the grocery stores"
who support the process, but will instead get a roomful of "negative"
people who so vehemently oppose the law "that they'd walk here from
Aroostook."

Sensing both the end of the day and "the daunting workload ahead",
Senator Bowman welcomed interested Committee members to join him after
adjournment in the Committee's back room to negotiate how to program
their work sessions.

Committee adjourned at 3:21 PM.  The are scheduled to reconvene at
9:00AM tomorrow.

_______________________________________________
Local-Maine-Schools mailing list
To send a message to the list, write to:
 Local-Maine-Schools at mainetalk.org
To unsubscribe or change subscription settings:
 http://mainetalk.org/mailman/listinfo/local-maine-schools_mainetalk.org