Hodgdon Middle/High School (File photo by Joseph Cyr)
HOULTON, Maine — Area school administrators and board members were pleasantly surprised and also concerned about the scope of what comes next after the state selected a local plan to consolidate five schools among its top three finalists for a pilot project.
On July 11, the Maine Department of Education announced the finalists for the Integrated, Consolidated 9-16 Education Facility project which would create a new, state of the art consolidated high school.
Among the finalists is a plan to build a new consolidated middle-high school for RSU 29 (Houlton), SAD 70 (Hodgdon), RSU 50 (Southern Aroostook and Katahdin) and RSU 84 (East Grand), which also includes the Region 2 School of Applied Technology. The joint effort also involves pieces with the University of Maine at Presque Isle and Northern Maine Community College for post-secondary education.
So what exactly does that mean for the five schools? The answer is not a simple one.
RSU 29 Superintendent Ellen Schneider, project lead for the collaborative effort, said Wednesday she was pleasantly surprised the southern Aroostook County project was not only among the top three in the state, but actually scored the highest.
“I was pleased to see that we had made the list, primarily because there was a fair amount of work that went into it,” she said. “And then my second reaction was ‘Wow, now the rubber hits the road.’”
The second finalist was a proposal to combine Fort Kent Community High School, Wisdom Middle/High School (MSAD 33), Madawaska Middle/High School, and the St. John Valley Technology Center to create one high school and CTE center. This project scored a 38 out of a possible 40.
The third finalist, located in Piscataquis County, would merge Dexter Regional High School (MSAD 46) with Pisctaquis Community Secondary School (MSAD 41) in Guildford and the Tri-County Technical Center in Dexter, likely resulting in the construction of a new building. Those schools would partner with Forest Hills Consolidated School (RSU 82/MSAD 12) in Jackman and Greenville Consolidated School for distance learning and online programs. This plan scored a 28 out of 40.
Schneider explained that phase one of the application process was merely the five school districts expressing an interest into the possibility of joining forces, since the state was willing to pony up the necessary funds to build a new school.
“We all went into with the feeling that we had an interest to explore this [consolidation],” she said.
Now that their project was selected, the four superintendents, as well as Region Two director, must come up with an implementation plan for how the merger could happen. A meeting with the state has been set for Aug. 24 in Augusta. At that time, Schneider said the group would get a better understanding of what phase two of the application process entails.
Schneider admitted that there could be a scenario where not all five high schools agree to continue forward with the plan.
“We really would have been remiss in my mind to not put in an application,” she said. “Now we need to find out if all five of these schools want to continue with the process.”
Schneider said there has been no discussion on where a new, consolidated school would be located.
The vast geography of the consolidation plan may play a role for some of the schools. Hodgdon Middle-High School is only five miles from Houlton Middle-High School, but Southern Aroostook Community School is 21 miles away; East Grand Community School is about 35 miles; and Katahdin Middle-High School is 43 miles.
While some students from these other schools already travel to Houlton to attend classes at the Region 2 technology center, which is located next to Houlton Middle-High School, Schneider said some communities may not feel it would be feasible to send their students to a high school located in Houlton.
At a school board meeting Monday, July 10, SAD 70 Superintendent Scott Richardson informed his board that the plan was among the top three and admitted he was surprised to see it was the highest-ranking in the state.
Some members of the SAD 70 school board expressed apprehension at such a big project, and questioned what role the individual communities would have in the process. Richardson said there would likely be several public hearings on the subject, during which residents would have a chance to voice their opinions.
Early this year, the state department of education announced the pilot project, which it hoped would spur consolidation among neighboring high schools by allowing those districts to form their own plans and ideas on how to join forces. The state would start by working with one group of towns to launch the pilot project, but the new model they create could be pushed out to other parts of the state in the future.
The finalists move on to the second phase of the application process, during which the districts develop more comprehensive proposals for their projects and figure out what sort of support they need from the state.
Schneider said she felt the southern Aroostook proposal stood a good chance at being selected over the St. John Valley plan because those school districts are already heading toward consolidation and already have received a DOE grant in the amount of $600,000 to explore centralized operations.
The second application deadline is Dec. 29. The DOE is not expected to make a final decision until sometime in spring 2018. Once a winner is selected, it could take several more years before a new school is actually constructed.
Bangor Daily News reporter Nick McCrea contributed to this article.
