From: Connerty-Marin, David [Department of Education Communications Director]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 4:03 PM
To: DOE; Ray Poulin (rpoulin@maine.edu); Norm Higgins (normhiggins@adelphia.net)
Subject: Legislative Update: School Administrative Reorganization

Here is the much-anticipated official version of the update on the school administrative reorganization legislation.  Please forward to people in the field and to your lists as appropriate.  Note that readers can sign up to receive updates in the future directly from DOE. Thank you for your patience and assistance in improving this document and in passing this along.

David


Legislative Update on School Administrative Reorganization
April 10, 2007

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The Appropriations subcommittee on education presented its proposal to the full Appropriations Committee on Monday, April 9, though it is still meeting to finalize some pieces of the proposal.  If adopted by the Appropriations Committee, the proposal would replace the Governor’s Local Schools, Regional Support Initiative.  It includes many elements of that proposal, and the six others that were presented to the Legislature.   The full House and Senate will make the final decision on any proposed legislation. (See “The Legislative Process” below for more details.)

The information below is a summary of the current status of the legislation as drafted by the Appropriations subcommittee on education.

· Intent.  The stated purpose of the legislation is to provide:
o Equitable educational opportunities for all students
o Rigorous academic programs
o Uniformity in the delivery of academic programs
o Greater uniformity of school tax rates
o Efficient use of limited resources to achieve long-term sustainability and financial predictability
o More effective use of public funds through creating efficiencies and administrative structures that allow for more organized and regular delivery of professional development
o Preservation and enhancement of existing opportunities for school choice
o Opportunities to deliver services more effectively than would be possible in smaller units

· Reorganization.  Committee members wanted to afford some flexibility for existing school administrative units to determine who their regional district partners would be, but also want to ensure that new regional school units would be in place by July 1, 2008.  The draft legislation directs the state Department of Education to develop one or more models for existing school administrative units to consider as models as they plan for reorganization.

· Timeline.  Reorganized regional school units are required to be in place by July 1, 2008.  To assist districts in planning for an effective reorganization with other districts, the Department of Education would be required to present one or more models for reorganization of school units.  The Department would also prepare fiscal analysis, demographics, models for board representation and other information to provide guidance and support to communities.

The Department would provide facilitators to help communities with creating implementation plans, which are due to the Department by Nov. 15, 2007. Revisions to the plans, if required, would be due by Dec. 21, 2007.  If a community did not have an approved plan, the Department would propose one for it, and the State Board would certify.  The State Board of Education certifies all plans by Jan. 15, 2008.  Elections for new school boards by March 31, 2008.  New Regional School Units open July 1, 2008.

· Number and size of districts.  There would be no more than 80 regional school units total.  Most regional school units (RSU’s) will have a minimum of 2,500 students; some units would have fewer than 2,500 students because of “geographic, demographic, economic, transportation, population density or other unique circumstances.”  That could include, e.g., some island school districts and Native American schools. All communities would have to be part of a regional school unit and could not “opt out.”

Existing units with more than 2,500 students would not be automatically exempted from the reorganization process.  All units would be reviewed for possible reorganization and partnership with other nearby units as part of an overall plan to ensure no more than 80 regional school units.

· Savings targets. All school units must create a plan to achieve savings targets.  Projected expenditures in transportation, special education administration and facilities and maintenance must be reduced by 5% in 2008-09 compared to the previous year total of the participating school administrative units.

· Governance. All regional school units would have a single governing board, with optional local advisory councils with locally determined functions.

New regional school units would be structured similar to current SAD structures.  Each new unit would develop a governance structure based upon the one person, one vote principle.  Three methods are provided for determining representation, one which allows for at least one representative from every municipality in the district, one that allows for at least one representative from each subdistrict of the region, and one that allows for at-large representation.  The communities comprising the new regional school unit would decide which method to use.

· Public involvement.  The subcommittee added provisions for public input as communities determine what regional district partners to join with in a reorganized district.

· Transparency in budgeting. Committee members are still finalizing details of this section.  The subcommittee has talked about requiring regional school unit boards to present their budget to the voters at a school district meeting, similar to a town meeting, at which any member of the public could propose changes to the budget, and could vote on each part of the budget.  The budget would then be sent out for an up-or-down referendum vote by all voters in the communities that make up the new district.  The ballot explanation form would present the budget in a way that shows how proposed expenditures compare to the state-recommended funding allocations (Essential Programs and Services).  No final recommendation has been made about the budgeting process.

· Protections for small schools.  The committee protects small schools in at least three ways:
o It would take a two-thirds vote of the members of a regional school unit board to close a school.
o A majority of voters in the municipality where the school resides would also have to vote to close the school.  (If they were to vote to keep it open, that municipality’s taxpayers would be responsible for paying the amount that would be saved by the regional school unit if the school were closed.)
o Greater budget transparency – motivated voters would have the opportunity to influence the budget (which would include closure of any school) at the district-wide annual budget meeting.
o By finding efficiencies, more resources could be dedicated to preserving and improving all schools, rather than to administration.

What about?

The Governor’s plan
Governor Baldacci proposed the Local Schools, Regional Support Initiative in January as part of his two-year state budget proposal.  From the start, Gov. Baldacci said he was not insistent on his plan – but would insist on administrative efficiencies, real savings, and academic excellence.  If another plan could achieve those goals, he would support it.

Since then, the Legislature’s Education Committee, then the Appropriations subcommittee on Education, and now the entire Appropriations Committee, have been reviewing his proposal, six other proposals on school administrative reorganization, and have crafted new legislation that incorporates some of the elements of all the proposals.  

The Appropriations Committee will present a final version in legislation for vote by the full House and Senate, most likely in late April or early May.  The budget language originally proposed by the Governor will be replaced by the Appropriations Committee’s proposed legislation.

You can read even more detail about the legislative process below.

Student-teacher ratio
As originally proposed, the Governor’s proposal called for changing the funding allocation for teachers to reflect a 17:1 student-teacher ratio at the middle and high school level.  Education Commissioner Susan Gendron withdrew that request on Feb. 27.  Funding for student-teacher ratios will remain at the existing 16:1 in middle school and 15:1 in high school (it is currently 17:1 in K-5 and was not slated for change).

The decision to withdraw was prompted by hearing from education administrators around the state that if faced with the reduction, they would cut arts, Advanced Placement, and other specialized teaching offerings.  These are fundamental to well-rounded student learning and some are requirements of Maine’s Learning Results.  While those cuts would not have been necessary as a result of the proposed change, it was determined best not to address student-teacher ratios at this time, and to focus instead on the administrative restructuring, which accounts for significantly more savings and was the focal point of our efforts.

Laptops
The Governor’s proposal would have used some of the savings from the change in student-teacher ratio to provide laptops to every student in grades 9-12, an expansion of the grades 7-8 laptop initiative.  Because the student-teacher ratio proposal was withdrawn, those monies are not available for laptops.  The Governor and Commissioner Gendron are both committed to expanding the laptop initiative and to developing a plan to assist high schools in an implementation strategy.

Child Development Services
Child Development Services is the program that provides services to developmentally disabled children from birth to age 5.

In forums around the state, parents and others expressed concern about the original proposal to incorporate Child Development Services (CDS) into new regional school districts. (There are currently 16 CDS units.)

The Governor and Commissioner Gendron did not have the recommendations of the Subcommittee for Special Education at the time that the legislation was drafted. In response to those concerns, Commissioner Gendron moved on February 1, to take that piece out of the LSRS proposal, and to work with stakeholders in reviewing the recent recommendations of a CDS task force to come up with a separate proposal for CDS.

The Commissioner will work with the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs as they consider the recommendations for Child Development Services.

The Appropriations subcommittee’s proposal makes no changes to CDS as part of any school administrative reorganization.

How can I show support for reorganization of central office administration?
Share your view with friends, neighbors, and co-workers by writing letters to the editor of your local newspaper and by contacting your state representative or senator.  Click here to find your legislators. [http://janus.state.me.us/house/townlist.htm]

The Legislative Process

Proposals
Governor Baldacci proposed the Local Schools, Regional Support Initiative in January as part of his two-year state budget proposal.  In late January, the Legislature’s Education and Appropriations Committees began reviewing the Governor’s proposal for school administrative restructuring along with six other school reorganization proposals.  Those include legislation based on recommendations from the Maine Children’s Alliance and the State Board of Education.

Committee Process
The Appropriations Committee is responsible for reviewing the budget, adopting changes, and then presenting its recommendations to the full House and Senate.  Appropriations typically asks “committees of jurisdiction” to review their portion of the budget – Judiciary to review parts of the budget affecting the courts, Agriculture to review agriculture programs, etc.

Those committees, including the Education Committee, “report back” to Appropriations with their recommendations, especially around the policy pieces, but also around funding recommendations.  That is why the Education Committee held a joint public hearing with the Appropriations Committee on Feb. 5 at the Augusta Civic Center seeking input from the public on the Governor’s, and the six other proposals for school administrative restructuring.

The Education Committee deliberated for more than four weeks on finding a solution to achieve system administrative savings in the state’s school districts while maintaining and improving educational achievement in the classroom.

On March 8, the Education Committee reported to the Appropriations Committee with three separate recommended courses of action.  The Appropriations Committee then appointed a subcommittee of four members to build upon the work of the Education Committee.   

The full Appropriations Committee will take up the draft language proposed by its subcommittee on education and will proposed legislation to the full House and Senate.  The committee will vote on the entire budget document, not just the education portion.  It is expected that the budget bill will go to the full Legislature in late April or early May.

The House will take it up first and then the Senate. Any member of the House may propose amendments on the floor, and the same with any member of the Senate.  The two bodies must pass the same budget bill, so if the Senate approves a change, the House must take it up again and approve the amendment.  If not, they have to keep at it until they agree on an identical version.

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