Reorganization Planning Committee Meeting
2 July 2008 DRAFT Minutes
Present: Facilitator Bill Ferm Chair Gail Marshall Vice-Chair Brian Hubbell
Mount Desert: Laurel Robbins, Patrick Smallidge Southwest Harbor: Amy Young, Kristin Hutchins Bar Harbor: Paul Murphy, Bob Garland Tremont: Amy Murphy
Others in attendance: Rob Liebow, Rick Barter, Nancy Thurlow, Kelley Sanborn, Judy Sproule,
Heather Jones, George Peckham, Amy Davis, Fred Ehrlenbach, Mike Swanson, Gary Webber,
Heather Bird, Charlie Farley, Julie Hagel, and Elsie Flemings
Commencement of Meeting
Gail Marshall called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m.
Review of Draft Minutes from 4 June 2008
MOVED by Laurel Robbins, seconded by Kristin Hutchins and unanimously voted to approve the minutes of 4 June 2008, as written.
Public Comment
None
Report from Superintendent and Business Manager
Rob Liebow – It appears that DOE financial folks, on the form 279, will show how the special ed subsidy for a minimum receiver will be split out for a specific town. Even though you get one subsidy check as a unit or AOS, we were concerned how one would divvy up that check without knowing whose money was whose. In the first approved RSU, Bath, they have a theoretical 279 which they share and it shows a couple of their towns on that sheet with the special ed number split out.
Patrick Smallidge – Was that built specifically for the Bath reorganization? Is it generic enough for everybody to use?
Rob Liebow – It’s generic enough in how EPS is figured. What that 279 is about is to come up with a determined amount of subsidy for the unit and how much your costs are supposed to be according to the essential programs and services formula. It appears that they are going to be able to show how you can account for the minimum special ed towns.
Gail Marshall – When we were at the training session, Ray Poulin had the form right there. Bath had been working on that independent of the reorganization process.
Rob Liebow – In our proposed AOS everybody is a minimum receiver except Frenchboro. If Trenton is in, they are close to a minimum receiver.
Review of DOE response to 6/13 progress report
Gail Marshall – The progress report provided the commissioner with our notices of intent to combine and pursue an alternative organizational structure and also mentioned in the cover letter that we were in dialogue with Trenton and they may become an active participant in our process. The commissioner simply wrote back and thanked us.
Report from 6/19 Drummond Woodsum workshop and meeting with Dick Spencer on inter-local agreement
Gail Marshall – Half-day workshop she, Brian Hubbell, and Rob Liebow attended. The whole morning was taken up with all the other changes in the law with respect to how they impact those people who are trying to form RSU’s. At the end they discussed the ability to form an AOS. Rob, Brian, and Gail met with Dick Spencer after the workshop and presented him with the progress report, the proposed board composition, and the funding formula, which is as it currently exists.
George Peckham – Last weekend, met with a friend who is on an RPC in New Gloucster and a teacher from Brunswick. Both of them told me those two towns are exempt from this process because their SAT scores were such that they could. Was there ever any discussion about whether we should be exempt?
Paul Murphy – The only exemptions based on performance, that I’m aware of, are for school districts that fall in the department’s classification of high performing and efficient. The way that was judged was not by SAT scores, but a school had to have an administrative cost that was 4% or less of overall costs.
Brian Hubbell – Neither of those districts fell under that exemption. Those two districts were over the size limit so they were able to satisfy the law through an alternate plan.
Patrick Smallidge – If you read that law, there is very little about education in it. It was all about reducing the state’s appropriation to support the local property tax payer and the endeavor of supplying education to it’s kids. It was more important to hit that 4% administration. The state’s goal was not education. It was all money.
Report from Trenton on proposal to join MDI RPC
Introduction of representatives from Trenton. Judy Sproule, Amy Davis, Fred Ehrlenbach, Heather Bird, Gary Webber, Mike Swanson, Charley Farley, Julie Hagel. The MDI RPC members and others present introduced themselves.
Judy Sproule – Trenton was invited to attend the RPC meetings here and the idea of joining MDI was very attractive to them. Based on the information they had at the time and the way the law was structured, they could not justify the cost to the people of Trenton as it was going to be in the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional expenses. After months of working with a group that included Ellsworth, Union 96, and airline schools, they figured out that it was the safest and most economical option to keep Union 92 together. Their notice of intent was not approved. MDI filed their report at the same time and that was rejected. She reviewed the legislative process and the changes that were proposed to the law. The final amendment from the commissioner provided for the alternative organizational structure. That amendment alleviated a lot of the financial barriers to them joining MDI. They decided a few weeks ago that if MDI would have them, they would like to join the RPC. They felt that the best educational opportunities were there for their students. Historically the vast majority of their students have attended MDIHS. The idea of giving their students the advantage of the programs and curriculum that MDI offers gives them additional opportunities and enhances the education of everybody at MDIHS.
Patrick Smallidge – You [Trenton] are planning on joining the Union 98 structure. Are you planning on joining as a full-fledged member of the high school structure also? This has fiscal repercussions for everyone sitting in this room.
Bill Ferm – We are talking about Trenton becoming a part of the MDI RPC and then we have another agenda item to talk about potential effects of Trenton joining the MDI regional school system.
Gail Marshall – It’s a critical question and the answer is, because of the way the law is written now, our job as an RPC is to restructure Union 98. It is not our job to restructure the high school. The discussions we have had with Trenton have been about Union 98 and not the high school. If they become a member of our AOS, that issue may arise. We previously ran numbers with Trenton staying as a tuition town versus becoming a member of the high school board. You would see a significant shift and increase in expenses in island communities and a decrease from what is the tuition payment from Trenton’s contribution to the high school if we were to use the existing formula. That is going to have to be a comprehensive discussion between the municipalities if we want to integrate Trenton into the high school board.
Patrick Smallidge withdrew his question.
George Peckham – Aren’t the proposed AOS’s and RPC’s supposed to include the high school? Why are we looking at Union 98 separately?
Gail Marshall – The high school is a member of Union 98 along with the individual towns. The high school is served by the Union 98 office in the same way that the elementary schools are served by the Union 98 office. The high school is just another player in the central office and would continue to be in the central office that gets composed by an inter-local agreement.
Paul Murphy – When the law was finalized, Trenton perceived financial barriers to have been removed. Can you tell us what those are?
Judy Sproule – The first one is that we would be allowed to join and still tuition our students to the high school. We were focusing on paying 50% more than what we were currently paying. The employment language got changed in the last hours, too. Not that that in itself would have been a hurdle but it makes it easier not to have to do that overnight.
Discussion of potential effects of Trenton’s joining MDI Regional School System
Gail Marshall – The first effect is that they [Trenton] would become a member of the AOS board in the same way that we have members from these communities serving on the Union 98 board. As we drafted the composition of the board and proposed how that board would be composed, Trenton would join us with 3 voting members which brings the total voting board size to 19. They would be full members of that board in the same way that any of us are when deciding central office issues. Their town, like all of our towns, would be doing budget validation process, and they would be joining us in making decisions about the budget for the central office so their voters would be equally participating in that as voters from each of our towns. The big issues that need to be worked on are consistent collective bargaining, consistent curriculum, and consistent policies. We’ve had some discussions about these, even before this meeting. We have looked at the actual terms of our contracts that we have and Trenton’s collective bargaining agreement. The other issue is that we have to talk about increasing the size of the staffing in the central office to accommodate the needs of an additional school because the Union 98 board has long felt that the central office staff is working to it’s maximum capacity. Bringing the contracts into alignment is a big issue. Trenton doesn’t have a unified curriculum yet.
Patrick Smallidge - Any increase in employment at the central office is a job for the AOS, not the RPC.
We can discuss the pros and cons, but fiscally it’s not a great deal of impact. I would be very comfortable in
moving that Trenton join the RPC committee right here and now. Anything we do here has to go to approval by the voters. There is no true decision making capability that we have at this table. If Trenton wants to come play ball, thank you very much. I’d love to see you sit right here with us.
Gail Marshall – I’m prepared to agree with you. In broader principal, I think it is the purview of this community to decide for a whole lot of practical, financial, and educational reasons, if you extended that.
For the purposes of Trenton, I’d be prepared to second the motion.
Paul Murphy – I’d like to discuss all those things before we vote on the motion. I’m happy for the motion and happy if Trenton ends up at the table. I want to know if Trenton’s RPC and or school board have an understanding of what they need to do contractually and fiscally to get to consistent contracts. I’d like to understand where you’re at in terms of centralizing your curriculum and adopting our curriculum.
Brian Hubbell – The law and our plan requires the common curriculum. So if any other group were to join us they would have to adopt a common curriculum. I think it’s reasonable to ask if they are willing to do that.
Paul Murphy – If there’s an idea of what it will take in Trenton to do that, does it mean adding teachers and programs? Does that change the financial picture of joining this AOS?
Gail Marshall – In the fall when our professionals are back full time, prior to a November vote, the nuts and bolts of merging and integrating their staff into our system would be worth discussin.
Paul Murphy – Does Trenton have some idea of what that will involve and if there’s a gap, where that gap is. What does it mean for Trenton to adopt what is now the Union 98 curriculum?
Patrick Smallidge – Where did this November vote come from? Are you referring to a confirmation of the AOS? We had discussed putting it off until after the November election hoping that maybe it would be repealed.
Gail Marshall – I am going to be advocating for a November vote. We haven’t decided that.
Rob Liebow – One point of clarification on the curriculum. If you have the curriculum, you don’t necessarily have all the programs. As an example, Swan’s Island doesn’t have foreign language, so they don’t have a curriculum for that. If they were to establish foreign language, they would follow the curriculum that is established. It isn’t that there would be completely common programs, but if you have the program they will be common. One of the biggest things is that if there were materials specifically tied to the curriculum and they weren’t using those materials, then you would have to have money in your budget to buy the materials so you could follow the curriculum. That would be one of those hidden costs.
Bob Garland – It seems like some of these things could better be worked out if we acted on Patrick’s motion tonight and they were to work with us for a while.
Bill Ferm – We’ve had a motion and it’s been seconded to invite Trenton to join our RPC board. Let’s give members from Trenton an opportunity to speak to these issues and tell us their reaction to having this discussion.
Heather Bird (teacher from Trenton) - A lot of the teachers I work with have raved about this curriculum. Our goal is for our students to have a similar education as those students on the island. We would basically have to drop everything that we are doing, switch it around, get entirely new resources and materials and start from the basics. We use entirely different language arts programs. What I saw on the website is that the island uses a textbook program for social studies and science in the middle grades. We don’t have those programs or materials. The one common item was Everday Math.
Laurel Robbins – When you say “start from scratch” can you tell me what that means?
Heather Bird – We have the same science kits that are used on the island in grades 3-5 but we teach them at different grade levels. I don’t know how closely to the curriculum you would like us to follow. The language
arts program uses the Scott Foresman and Rigby Reading programs. Those are not resources outlined in your curriculum. Your teachers have been working with this curriculum for years. Not only would we need to have the materials available to us, but we would also need to be trained to use them properly.
Gail Marshall – It would be great to have professional-to-professional assessment of what that will take.
Is there a glide path to that common curriculum that Union 98 and Trenton professionals and community members would be comfortable with? The other question is, are you excited about this?
Heather Bird – The state has new learning results now. Your curriculum is still aligned with the 1997 MLR. Are you working toward aligning with the 2007 MLR?
Rob Liebow – That is happening with curriculum teams this summer.
Heather Bird – So there wouldn’t be a way for Trenton to be involved in that?
Rob Liebow – Not a closed shop. You could call our curriculum director about that.
Patrick Smallidge – Nowhere in any of the laws did I see mention of a timeline for this common curriculum. To me it sounded like “intent”. Who is going to be the deciding authority on what is common curriculum? Currently Trenton tuitions it’s kids to the high school. Is there a problem? I have not heard a peep at all. That would indicate that there is a significant amount of common curriculum and that the level of education is parallel to those schools on the island. This sounds like a problem that does not need to be fixed.
Paul Murphy – Thank you for you answer, Heather. If there is an administrative reply, I would like that, too. The law calls for consistent contracts and consistent common curriculum. Intent is not going to be good enough, speaking for myself. There has to be a plan for execution and there have to be consequences for not executing. That applies to all of us, not just Trenton. Our contracts are consistent by agreement among the towns but any one of us could fail to maintain those common contracts.
Gail Marshall – Putting my school board hat on – the school boards on this island have worked very hard, along with our administrators, teachers, and staff for quite a few years now, to create this environment in which every individual school’s curriculum and opportunities are enhanced by the fact that we work together in a focused way. It was not just political convenience that created the environment in which the commissioner chose to use our system as a model. Our system really does work well by having the consistency that we do. As a school board member, it is indeed significant and important for our kids going forward to have those kinds of commonalities of purpose and commonality of direction. I care about what kind of system we end up with for the future of our schools. Not that everything is identical, but that we are working as a common entity for a common purpose to educate all the kids that are coming to this high school as consistently as possible so that they are on the same playing field.
Judy Sproule – Speaking as a school board person – I agree with you completely. It’s this consistency we are looking for. I believe everybody on our school board unanimously agrees with that. For the first time this year Union 92 put forth on June 19 to the combined staff the first pieces of a coordinated curriculum. We are ready to adopt a curriculum. She attended a staff meeting at her school to update them on consolidation. It was before a firm decision had been made. She talked about the fact that they had choices. The possibility of staying with Union 92 and having staff involved in the formation of a new school system. The curriculum piece has been missing so it would be starting new and having ownership of it. If we go with schools of Union 98 where it is already established you are going to be handed something. The first comment from a teacher was, “The MDI curriculum is awesome. It is online and everyone should look at it.” The majority of comments were very much in favor of going to Union 98 and supporting that. The general consensus was, why would you start something new when there is something that’s already existing and has been proven that it works. We need to be on the same curriculum and that is a commitment our school board is ready to make. If it’s different we’ll manage that. You’re all in a much easier position because there’s very little change you have to undertake. We have many variables we have to look at. We do know that our current programming lacks some of the things that you offer. We have to figure out how we can add some of these things like foreign language. We need to address the teacher contract issue. We’re committed to making that happen. We know that if we take the staff we have hired for fall 2008 and drop them into your salary scale it’s about $110,000 additional in salaries and the benefits. People may switch what plan they take. But where they are now is another $85,000 dollars. We have to, with your help, figure out what all these variables are and then make this manageable for our taxpayers. We don’t have another alternative. This is the best thing we can do for our community and we are dedicated to the idea of making this work.
Fred Ehrlenbach – Trenton is in a position where Union 92 does not exist a year from now. No matter where we go we’re going to have to address these issues one way or another.
Gail Marshall – Judy, the numbers you gave us are for teaching staff, correct?
Judy Sproule – Yes.
Gail Marshall – We’ve had some theoretical conversations about phases in terms of Trenton getting to our contract.
Rob Liebow – Next year the Mount Desert Island common contract is in year 3 of a 3-year contract. We are starting next fall to negotiate a new common contract that has the possibility of being another 3-year contract. Trenton’s new contract is in year 1 next year and is a 3-year contract. Lining those up side by side, in year 2 of your new contract, if things went well, both sides and your teachers and school committee would agree to open negotiations for the purpose of discussing language to try to line up with the language in the common contract on the island. There might be some financial ramifications in that, but it would be more about personal leave and sick leave and caps. Then in the transition year, year 3 of the new island common contract, you might negotiate a one-year contract for your folks that would line up the lanes of the salary scale because they are different. When the island went to negotiate the third common contract, the next 3-year cycle, you would be at the table with that group and already have the language taken care of and the lanes set up. I was looking at a salary idea of ramping up to full compliance with the salary over the course of the 3-year contract. By 2014-2015 you would be fully compliant with the salary scale and language. It would be a gradual process by which the old contract was there as it is and can run it’s term by law, but it seems prudent to open it up to get as much language together as possible and then ramp up the salary. Possibly next year could be a “study year” which is a non-negotiation year. Talk about the language and the differences without having to worry about someone sitting behind their cards and not talking about what those issues are. Then you have a negotiations year where you talk about the language and then you ramp up. You’d have a chance to plan over time all these aspects with the final one being the financial commitment.
Paul Murphy – Thanks to Rob and Judy. Sounds like a good start from here. Might sound different from Trenton’s standpoint. We’re about to enter a new contract that is going to make, over the course of our two contracts, a wider gap between us. We’re aware that you already have a tough mil rate and this isn’t going to be mil rate friendly to you folks.
Gail Marshall – Looked at the two contracts and there are a lot of similarities already. If we lay out a scenario like this and everybody knows about it before going in the voting booth, if we’re concerned about everybody being on board and working toward that complete merger, Trenton taxpayers are going to figure that out up front. It won’t take 7 years. One of the things I’m hoping we can get agreement on is that we can invite representatives from Trenton’s board and teachers’ association to be confidential observers of our negotiations when they start up in the fall.
Patrick Smallidge – Would it be acceptable to have a ramp up of the curriculum? If you stretch that over 8 or 9 years it becomes more palatable to taxpayers.
Paul Murphy – These changes are not going to happen overnight. Out of necessity there will be a timeline. There is a real likelihood that the pain to the taxpayers of Trenton is likely to be higher and not lower as these contracts go forward.
Rob Liebow – We are also on a five-year curriculum cycle where a specific subject area has the year of focus. There is a full-blown review of the curriculum and a realignment check with the learning results. Then everybody puts in a sum of money to purchase materials to augment the curriculum that year. So every five years you are back to that subject again. That is a pre-established glide path to a full review of the curriculum.
Patrick Smallidge – Very glad to see Trenton here. We have no indication whether our towns are going to buy into this or not. There are a significant number of people who are going to vote their feelings on the consolidation. The town of Mt. Desert has funding issues with the high school. We’re all working toward a successful resolution. You want to be prepared to sit down here and do this again.
Bill Ferm – The motion we have is to add Trenton to the RPC. Are there other questions before we vote?
George Peckham – Suppose we go forward with Trenton to the Department of Education and then your folks vote to not come with us. What impact will that have on us?
Gail Marshall – That would be specified in the inter-local agreement. We would say Mt. Desert, Bar Harbor, Southwest Harbor, and Tremont would have to vote to approve an order for the AOS to take effect as presented. The outer islands and Trenton would not stop the AOS from going forward if they voted no.
Brian Hubbell – That’s not the inter-local agreement. That would be the reorganization plan. The school boards will decide whether or not to approve the inter-local agreement.
Judy Sproule – This is an incredible opportunity for our town to give our people their money’s worth. Our budget for next year is $3.17 million dollars. It’s more in line with your budget. If we can get to the point where we can offer what you’re offering that would be very exciting. It’s an opportunity for us to focus on education.
Kristin Hutchins – For Trenton’s teachers, what does it mean complying with our curriculum, in terms of learning results you want to be producing to have to be focusing on one aspect of the curriculum at a time?
If you were to focus on social studies for example and the curriculum you have.
Heather Bird – Social studies would be the easiest to transfer because that is our weakest area. We have very strong language arts and math programs. Science had the most recent update to our curriculum. Question for Judy - my understanding is that we are still going to honor the choice for our students to decide where they want to go to high school. Looking at the social studies curriculum, grades 3 – 5 in particular, it focuses on island history and in focusing on island history we are doing a disservice to the students who do not choose to go to MDI high school. If we are going to be preparing our students for any high school they choose, our curriculum needs to be open enough to prepare them wherever they go.
Gail Marshall – I believe we call that cultural awareness and I’m all in favor of Mt. Desert Island school’s having that very thing.
Heather Bird – I wasn’t suggesting that your curriculum is narrow, but it is very focused on the history of the island. Our students should know the history of the island, Trenton, and Maine but I think it needs to be more balanced.
Paul Murphy – Curriculum is a living thing. If and when our boundaries expand, we need to serve all members of the school community. The way we need to give in terms of the curriculum may not be limited to history of the island. The fact that you folks are going to come to our curriculum doesn’t mean that our curriculum shouldn’t change to accommodate you. I hope you find us enthusiastically open to that.
Amy Young – It’s gratifying to hear you [Trenton] so interested and eager to join what has worked so well for us. One of the most important things that makes our organization so successful is openness to what needs to happen or investigate or change. Adjusting your curriculum to be like ours isn’t a one-way street. It’s open.
Gail Marshall – Our strength on our school board, including our central office board, is that when we sit at the table and decide matters and vote on them, the ideal we maintain is that you can’t tell which town the voters on that board come from. That’s a huge key to the success of any school system in which you have individual players who all want to maintain the integrity of their individual community schools. When we come together to do common business, we don’t do it as a town representative, we do it as representatives to this board. It will take time for all of us to integrate from all sides in that way, but that’s my goal.
Gail Marshall called the motion that we offer to see three Trenton RPC members at our table.
Unanimously voted to approve Trenton having three RPC members join the MDI RPC.
Gary Webber, Judy Sproule and Mike Swanson will be the representatives from Trenton.
Work plan for summer
Gail Marshall – Do we want to go to a November vote versus a January vote, or sometime in between. She is in favor of a November vote. The likelihood that there will be significant enough change, or repeal of this law is slim to non-existent. Our schools need to get back on track and focus on educational issues. Your school board members who sit at this table are going to be choosing a new principal for the high school next year and negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The longer we drag this out, the less capable we are of doing a good job of handling those matters for our community. If it is possible to do this in November then we know where we stand on that issue and focus on making that happen and dealing with those big issues we are being hit with this year. If we have to delay it, we have to. If you want to get a big turnout of the population, then November is your date.
Judy Sproule – The repeal can’t happen by November. If the rest of the signatures are collected and approved then it goes to the legislature in January. Then they could act on it or not. If they don’t it goes to November 2009 for a vote.
Patrick Smallidge – The value of waiting to see who we change out in the legislature would be worth waiting for a vote after November.
Kristin Hutchins – The big turnout in November trumps it for me because you get to hear from the most people.
Laurel Robbins – In thinking about what is best for our schools I think we need to get it done and focus on education.
Paul Murphy – Support Gail’s suggestion that we go with the November vote. Freeing our central office of this burden is important. If we vote for this in November and then it gets repealed, then we go back to what we were. I don’t see a downside.
Gail Marshall – With respect to the legislature, there is an election in November and people don’t take their seats until January. Nothing gets done in the legislature until the last few days of the session, which would be late spring. We have a legal deadline. It’s got to happen by November or January. By law, we have to have this vote before the legislature would do anything significant anyway.
George Peckham – I hope you will schedule some public forums ahead of time.
Gail Marshall – Yes.
Action on adopting RSS reorganization timeline
MOVED by Patrick Smallidge and seconded by Paul Murphy to approve the timeline as presented.
The motion passed by a vote of 8 in favor, 1 opposed (P. Smallidge)
Other business
When draft from Dick Spencer is received it will be sent to RPC members for review.
Date and time of next meeting
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 at 7:00 p.m.
Adjournment
MOVED by Paul Murphy, seconded by Laurel Robbins and unanimously voted to adjourn the meeting at 8:40 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Selena Dunbar, Recording Secretary