School Regionalization News From Executive Director, Mark Gray

Hello:
After much work and many late nights, the 2008-09 biennial budget was passed last night by both houses of the Legislature. The regionalization/consolidation plan was included in the budget and after a great deal of political maneuvering and compromise, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor in both the Senate and the House. The final language is not complete at this point, but I want to share the highlights:
Employment and Collective Bargaining Protections:
The language that the MEA worked to develop was maintained and included in the final bill! School employees and their employment agreements will be transferred to their new regional school district. Collective bargaining agreements will stay in place and be transferred to the new school district. And, existing bargaining agents will continue to be recognized, in most cases, by the new regional school districts. The conditional “in most cases” was added because in cases where different bargaining agents represent the same classification of employees in school districts that consolidate into a new, single regional school district, representational elections will most likely need to be conducted.
Existing collective bargaining agreements will remain in effect, and interim agreements will have to be negotiated that expire no later than the current agreement with the latest expiration date. These dates and timelines can only be calculated after regional school districts are formed and approved by voters.
MEA will have a great deal of work to do in order to reorganize existing local structures and to renegotiate existing collective bargaining agreements, but the majority of this work cannot begin until regional school units have been settled. Once that is complete, we will have a three year window period (approximately) to get our organizational structures to conform to school unit structures.
School District Size:
This was an area of much debate and compromise! In the end, the language will read something like…it is the "intent" of the Legislature is that "sustainable, long-term administrative efficiencies be achieved by consolidating the current number of school units...into 80 regional units or into a number of units that meets the administrative efficiencies established by this (law). Regional units of at least 2,500 resident students must be created except where circumstances justify an exception to that size requirement (off-shore island, tribal schools, etc.). Where circumstances require an exemption....the (consolidated) unit must serve as close to 2,500 students as possible and in no case....may it serve fewer than 1,200 students.
The Commissioner must approve proposed plans and when approving or disapproving a proposed plan, she would be prohibited from basing disapproval solely on the basis that such a plan would cause the number of regional school units to exceed 80.
Exemptions:
Off-shore island schools, tribal schools, schools already serving more than 2,500 students, and schools that believed they were eligible for an exemption because of a list of unquantified circumstances related to geography, demographics, economics, transportation, or population density were all exempt from the statute’s consolidation requirements. During legislative negotiations, schools designated as "efficient, high-performing districts" were added to that list of schools eligible for exemption. To meet that definition, the school must contain at least three school facilities identified as "higher performing" in a 2007 report of the Maine Educational Policy Institute, and the school must also have reported that its 2005-2006 per-pupil expenditures for system administration represent less than 4% of its per-pupil expenditures.

Additionally, a new term was coined…"donut-hole" schools. They would be exempt from consolidating, if they serve at least 1,200 students and if they have performed "due diligence" to develop a regional plan to meet the 2,500 student requirement but were unable to achieve the enrollment goal due to the decisions of the geographically proximate school systems.
Penalties:
Penalties for communities/school districts that vote to “opt-out” were softened as follows: non-compliant "minimum receivers" will receive 50% of their minimum subsidy; they will receive 50% of the financial support they would otherwise receive from the state for "system administration"; they will be ineligible for "transition" funding; they will not receive the full amount of state aid they would otherwise receive because the state is providing (on a statewide basis) 55% of the cost of education as measured by the EPS school funding model. (Specifically, the non-compliant schools will receive a subsidy calculated as though the required state share, in the aggregate, was 53.86% rather than 55%...in short, as if their state funding was frozen.); and all non-compliant schools will receive less favorable consideration for future school construction funding.
On the other hand, voters in municipalities that felt the regional school unit's budget was not properly funding their local elementary school would be authorized to raise money and direct the spending of the funds to that elementary school. This provision was provided in response to the concern that under the proposed legislation the school union system would generally not be allowed unless the regional board of directors is willing to effectively create such a system.
Timeframe:
Only those municipalities that have fully developed school consolidation plans by December 15, 2007 would have to schedule a referendum vote on or before January 15, 2008 in order to create a new consolidated school system that would begin operations on July 1, 2008.
All other municipalities would be given until June 10, 2008 to hold the mandatory referendum votes on their school consolidation plans to create new school system that would begin operation on July 1, 2009. If communities opt out, the penalties above apply.
Other Issues:
Regional school administrative units will replace SAD’s, school unions, community school districts, and municipal schools.
Regional school boards will have representational apportionment in same way that SAD boards are established.
School choice will continue for those communities that currently have school choice.
A 2/3’s vote of the regional school board is required to close a local school and a community can keep such a school open by majority vote if they are willing to assume most of the costs.
As I stated earlier, this is one of the most significant CHANGES in the organization and delivery of K-12 education in Maine in decades. How these changes are implemented will take many forms and plans that are made today will undoubtedly change many times as we move forward….but contrary to the threatened implementation of TABOR, or the Palesky referendum before it, the MEA as able to help shape the direction and the degree of this change in the structure of our K-12 school districts. In doing so, I believe that we may have averted yet another attack on our public schools by those who have much less interest in their success or in our success.
Over the next several days, we will get the actual legislative language and we will keep you abreast of the specific details of this far-reaching legislation. I will be putting together a staff work group to begin to identify issues and concerns that the MEA will need to address. I will keep you posted as such planning take place. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns, please give me a call.
Best,
Mark