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Regular Meeting - 02/18/09
Topic: School
Consolidation
Three Rivers Kiwanis
Sandee's, Milo, Maine USA-2/18/09-Three Rivers Kiwanis,
Milo-Brownville
February 18, 2009
Regular Meeting Minutes
There were sixteen members present at the morning meeting at
Sandee’s Restaurant on Wednesday morning. We had an inter-club
from Dover with four members present and three members from the
Key Club, Josh, Camille, and Stephanie.
We also had Stephanie Gillis present, one of our honorary
members. Good to see you Stephanie.
Eben DeWitt led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, Herbie Dunham
offered the Morning Prayer, and Jim Lord provided the Thought
for the Day. Herbie and Merna have an anniversary on February
20th.
Kiwanis One Day committee will be meeting to work out the
details on the Pleasant River Walk cleanup tentatively
scheduled for May 23rd. Ethelyn rescheduled the Orono/Oldtown
inter-club due to a town meeting in Milo on Tuesday night. She
will be rescheduling for March. The Young Children Priority One
committee will meet today following the morning meeting.
There will be a Division 2 meeting and training in Dexter on
Saturday February 18th at noon. Our speaker next week will be
the Pastor from the Brownville Jct. Methodist Church and Josh
Clement will speak on March 4th. March 5th is the next board
meeting and regular members are invited to attend anytime.
We had sixteen happy/Sad Dollars- Lois is happy to be here this
morning and we are happy to see her; girls lost at the
tournament; nice to be here; and, many sad dollars for the loss
of Dylan.
Our speaker today was Gil Reynolds, the interim Superintendent
for SAD 41. Gil has been a teacher, principal, and
superintendent during his career. Today Gil addressed the
question of what happens now that the school consolidation in
Milo has been voted down. The communities involved voted 1043
to 451 against regionalization. The range of communities was
from Lagrange to Jackman with a total of 160 miles between the
towns. SAD#68 was the exception and voted in favor of the plan.
There is a State penalty of approximately $107,814.00 that will
be split between the school districts. SAD #68 has asked the
state for a delay on the penalty as they voted in favor of the
regionalization.
An AOS is an alternate structure that is being explored that
allows for more local control and would only share
transportation, special education, and a superintendent. At
this time two consultants from the DOE have been into the
schools. At this time, Dover and Milo have interim
superintendents and talks are going on about sharing a
superintendent. SAD#41 and SAD #31 are continuing to discuss
how they could work together. In November there will be a
statewide vote on regionalization.
Gil answered many questions about the consolidation. An AOS
school unit could have 1000 to 1200 students. If the RSU had
been approved SAD#68 would have had 10 voting positions on the
board and SAD#41 would have had 9. Each vote would have been
weighted based on population at 192 votes per board member in
Dover to 103 votes per board member in Milo.
The goal of the State was to save at least $15,000 per school
district and cut the number of superintendents with their
original plan but it would actually add cost to local school
districts to set up central offices. SAD#41 could save $15,000
just by sharing a superintendent at this time. Edwin brought up
the very important question of “What is better for the kids?”
No one has really been focused on what is better for kids.
The process has been frustrating, time consuming, and costly to
schools as time, effort, and resources have been used trying to
meet the Governor’s requirements. This is at a time when the
state has just announced a cut of 27 million out of school
budgets due to the state having less money in their own
budgets.
We would like to thank Gil Reynolds for speaking today to the
Kiwanis.
Meeting adjourned.
Respectfully submitted,
Heidi Finson, Secretary
Gil Reynolds, the interim Superintendent for SAD
41
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