State, Machias-area School Officials Battle over Consolidation Progress

Supt. Scott Porter: RPC “On Target” to Make Deadline

Principal Tony Maker: It “Bothers” DOE that Local Group Declined to Have State-Appointed Facilitator

By Will Tuell

Downeast Coastal Press, Sept 30, 2008

Education Commissioner Susan Gendron, in a September 18 letter, rebuked the Machias-area Regional Planning Committee (RPC) for a perceived lack of progress in school consolidation planning, arguing that the RPC has failed to keep Department of Education (DOE) officials in the loop.

“I am writing because I am concerned with the lack of communication with the [DOE] regarding any activity around school administrative reorganization planning in the Machias region, and the impact that may have on the school systems and municipalities there,” wrote Gendron.

Union 102 Superintendent Scott Porter took issue with Gendron's claims that “deadlines have not been met.”

“We've complied with the law,” Porter said. “There is no progress report that I'm aware of that has been requested from us. I've talked to DOE officials periodically this summer and there were several of them that are high-ranking officials that knew exactly what we were doing. Our attorney, Dick Spencer from Drummond-Woodsum, has talked to them on several occasions to get information on our behalf. So they were well aware of what we were doing.”

Gendron also contended that local planners had agreed to bring on a state-appointed facilitator to help them navigate the consolidation law, but that local officials have not responded to the facilitator's attempts to convene RPC meetings.

East Machias Elementary School Principal Tony Maker offered a different version of events, saying that the RPC was more than qualified to develop a plan on their own and that using a facilitator would be wasting taxpayers' money. “We chose not to use a state facilitator for two reasons,” he said, “because we felt that it was not a good use of taxpayers money, and we felt that we had the expertise here locally to do this plan ourselves. It sounds like, if you read the letter, that they're most upset that we're not using a state facilitator. That's where the lack of communication is.”

Porter agreed, adding that the plan is “99 percent done” and that it should go before the full RPC September 30, and be ready for area voters “well before” the deadline of January 30, 2009.

“[Gendron’s] letter indicated that the facilitator has tried numerous times to get a hold of us,” said Porter. “That is absolutely not true. It was a form letter that went out to many different places in the state. They're just trying to warn people that you need to get the work done. I assured them that our plan is 99 percent done. We're going to present it to the full [RPC] September 30. ... We knew we wouldn't be able to get people together during the summer months, so we are ready to roll and on target to get done far prior to January 30, 2009, which is what the law calls for.”

Maker suggested that the state was more than welcome to send someone down to monitor the area's progress as school reorganization planning meetings are open to the public.

“Now if they want to send a facilitator down to listen, or send anybody down, these are public meetings,” Maker said. “They can send anybody they'd like to come down to the public meetings to hear what we're discussing. I think their concern is because they don't have a direct link with a state facilitator that's here. … They [DOE] aren't getting a weekly report from their facilitator of what's going on in the Machias reason. They're not getting that. ... I think that bothers them.”

Maker said that while the state has some good facilitators, most of whom are retired school administrators being paid as private consultants, the DOE would not send the local RPC their choice among them. “We requested two or three specific facilitators early on, and didn't get those facilitators [so] we decided that we can do this on our own. We don't need to waste taxpayers’ money, and we have the expertise to do it ourselves. And because we did that, they don't have a clear picture of what we're doing, and that bothers them. Facilitators were offered, but they weren't mandated, so we decided we weren't going to go in that direction.”

Maker and Porter, along with East Machias Selectman Kenneth “Bucket” Davis, have been leaders in the opposition to the new regionalization law and have spent many days in Augusta over the past year lobbying against the original bill and advocating changes in the later amended version.

Porter said that if all goes well, area municipalities could be voting on school consolidation as early as mid-December, although the ball lies clearly in Gendron's court. “We're hoping to get these votes done in December. [Gendron] can hold us up, because she has two weeks to respond. And then if we have to make changes we'll have to meet again and she'll have another two weeks to respond.”

In order to to avoid delays, Porter said that he would ask permission of the RPC to forward a draft plan to DOE before a formal vote is taken, so that officials can give them feedback and any differences can be ironed out in advance, thereby streamlining the process.

The Machias-area RPC includes representatives from Union 102 (Jonesboro, Machias, Marshfield, Northfield, Roque Bluffs, Whitneyville, and Wesley), Union 134 (Cutler, Whiting and Machiasport), SAD 19 (Lubec) and the municipal school department of East Machias which shares administrative services with Union 102.

The RPC will meet at 6 p.m., Tuesday, September 30, at Elm Street School in East Machias.