Regional Education

Bath and Union 47

Regional Education Task Force Committee

Conclusions and Recommendations

Note: Final detailed subcommittee findings for each section of this report are available at Superintendents’ offices, online at www.bathpublicschools.com and www.u47.k12.me.us

as well as local libraries, town offices, schools, businesses and stores.

School Union #47 Bath School Department

123 B State Road 39 Andrews Road

West Bath, ME 04530 Bath, ME 04530

Barber, David Garrison, Chet Co-Chair Malin, Kristin

Connors, Bob Haggett, Bill Miller, David

Dillon, Frank Jewett, Darla Perry, Tom

Donovan, Dan Johnson, Paul Co-Chair Shuttleworth, William

Flink, Jean MacDonald, Tom Young, Chilloa

Executive Summary

After months of extensive study, in depth analysis and dialogue, the 14 member committee exploring creation of a Regional Education System encompassing Union 47 and Bath reached the unanimous conclusion that shifting into a regional system as soon as possible will be highly beneficial to students, parents, taxpayers and everyone involved in the educational process. This report addresses the committee’s rationale, describes the likely benefits and provides suggested implementation guidelines. In addition to serving our local interest, we hope the approaches recommended here will serve as a model for other school districts in Maine considering regionalization.

Striving for excellence in education became the committee’s first and highest priority. In that context, it adopted the following mission statement, “To create a regional approach to education to enrich all students’ opportunities to fulfill their optimal learning potential. Regionalization will be the catalyst for providing world class educational opportunities and achieving active community participation.”

On a specific note, an early goal will be to create a regional educational system in 2008 that will be equal to or better than the best Maine has to offer by 2012, while striving for world class status as the ultimate objective. It has been this committee’s overriding vision that creation of the new regional model will produce a learning environment which fully prepares each student for the opportunities and challenges of the 21^st century.

A majority of the committee’s time and energy was devoted to creation of a regional school/governance plan, because management and oversight of the new regional system will be substantially different from that of the present school districts. Indeed, new state legislation may be required to implement some aspects of the governance plan. The fundamental change is our recommendation that for all educational purposes, Bath and Union 47 will merge into a single, regional entity encompassing all of Arrowsic, Bath, Georgetown, Phippsburg, West Bath and Woolwich. Highlights of the committee’s governance recommendations are:

• There will be a single school board in the region - - The Regional School Board, comprised of 9 members, each entitled to one vote.

• Each school board member will be elected to represent 1/9^th of the region’s population. Present geo-political boundaries will be removed for purposes of electing members, who will serve rotating 3 year terms.

• The region will have a single administrative team headed by one superintendent and operating from a central office location.

• Existing school facilities will continue to be utilized into the foreseeable future, except for the Woolwich replacement, and each school will have a School Advisory Group (SAG) made up of parents and community members. The SAG roles will be to support and advise, assuring strong local input at the individual school levels.

• The committee has received legal advice that ownership of schools and educational assets must be transferred to the region under the proposed new concept.

• All students living within the region will be expected to attend regional public schools, or pay their own costs if schooled outside the region, unless grandfathered as described below, which will apply following adoption of the regional system. Grandfathering relates to situations where one or more children in a family are already attending schools outside the region, under town paid tuition arrangements when the regional system is adopted. Those tuition payments will be grandfathered and the same opportunities will be provided to all other children within the same family.

• The Regional School Board will be responsible for creating budgets and raising all funds necessary to operate the educational system, including the operation and maintenance of all school facilities.

• The regional school budget will be approved through an annual referendum conducted at the regional level after budgetary hearings have been conducted at multiple locations throughout the region. Decisions will be made by a majority of all votes cast within the entire region.

Selecting Regional School Board members on an equitable basis is an essential aspect of the governance recommendation. It is intended that the principle of one person/one vote be followed and that a professional demographer be retained to divide the region into 9 equal segments so that no member represents citizens from just one municipality.

An important aspect of the governance plan is creation of a structure which will quickly encourage residents to think about K-12 education on a regional basis, just as we now think of regional hospitals, Chambers of Commerce, United Ways, YMCA’s, and other vital organizations serving our area.

As a new feature, residents within the region may choose to send their children to any public elementary or middle school within the region as long as capacity exists, subject to guidelines established by the new Regional School Board.

The economic benefits of creating a regional system are significant! All other things being equal, approximately $1,579,000 in the annual school budget will be eliminated as a result of administrative savings and the absence of tuition payments. In addition, it is highly probable additional efficiencies can be found by consolidating procurement, negotiating contracts on a region wide basis, facility consolidation, consolidating program offerings, combined bonding, coordinated transportation, and many other changes made possible by gaining benefits from the economies of scale.

Beyond those cost savings targets, it is possible that the Maine Department of Education may be willing to finance or absorb the remainder of Bath’s remaining debt service obligations related to past Middle School upgrades. Our committee has urged the Department of Education to assume that responsibility in the interest of assuring equitable treatment for all taxpayers. Furthermore, the State has provided its assurance that state educational subsidies to the region will be equal to or greater than the total state educational subsidies now paid to the 6 communities.

Cost savings generated through regionalization may be re-invested to upgrade education, offset future cost growth, be utilized to reduce tax payments, or some combination of all the above. Those decisions should be left to the new Regional School Board.

Educational costs will be billed back to the communities, using a fair share formula, which gives consideration on a community by community basis to the number of students enrolled, population and state valuations – with each factor carrying an equal share weight of 33 1/3%.

The consensus of the committee is that all existing schools in the region continue to be utilized into the foreseeable future, except for the Woolwich replacement, to ease the transition into the regional operation. Its findings, in fact, confirmed that capacity exists to increase enrollment in every existing school facility with minimal, if any, added costs. Likewise, average student/teacher ratios are favorable enough so that enrollments can be increased with little disruption or increased costs. Thus, enrolling students in regional schools who otherwise may have tuitioned from Union 47 to middle school or high school outside Bath will prove very cost effective and educational quality should be enhanced.

The committee is aware that Woolwich has been tentatively approved for school construction. Repairs and upgrades to other schools have been identified and estimated to cost millions of dollars. Clearly, facility issues will require major attention in the years ahead. In fact, this committee has discussed and many local citizens believe it is time to give serious consideration to construction of a new high school within the region.

The committee believes future facility repair or construction decisions, as well as decisions related to program additions or deletions, should best be left to the new Regional School Board. Future educational bonding issues will require a region wide vote. Today, facility capacity is available to absorb all students within the region, but the committee cautions readers to be aware that major repairs, upgrades, and/or replacements are looming - - just as is true in most other school districts in Maine.

The report concludes with a transition plan intended to function during implementation of the new regional concept, until the new Regional School Board is in place.

Throughout its deliberations, the committee focused on issues related to local control and the advantages of educating young people in close proximity to home. Ultimately, the committee concluded that the proposed region of only 20,000 citizens, including 2,500 students all living in a relatively tight geographic area, will remain small by most standards after regionalization. And, that the powerful educational advantages envisioned under the proposed concept, coupled with tremendous economies in the regional system are compelling reasons to unanimously recommend adoption of the regional concepts proposed.

Educational Excellence

From its first discussions, improving the quality of K-12 education offered in the region was given the highest priority in committee deliberations, with the objective being creation of a school system competitive with the best public schools in Maine. Although many teachers are producing excellent results today, and many students and some schools are excelling, the committee’s clear perception has been that improvements are essential in our region across the entire educational spectrum. For example, more Advanced Placement courses are needed in the high school, the high student drop out rate must be reversed without delay and the full spectrum of academic levels requires attention.

Present school boards and administrators of course have been addressing quality related issues, but they have been hampered in many cases by the limited funding available. Since the regional concept envisioned will be far more efficient than the current two district organizational structure, more funds will be available under the proposed regional system to finance needed quality upgrades.

While our committee recognizes that the new Regional School Board must have decision making responsibilities related to all aspects of the K-12 programs offered and facilities utilized, it has formed a set of recommendations which are intended to guide thinking as the new regional system is implemented. The committee believes employing the following principles will produce the high level of excellence so important to students:

• Target overall excellence comparable to the best school systems, such as those members of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES).

• Create a single set of consistent guidelines and set standards that align with the highest Maine, New England and national standards.

• Commit to the highest quality educational leadership.

• Treat teachers with the respect they are due as the professionals who have the greatest impact on quality, results and morale within the entire system.

• Achieve and maintain optimal student to teacher ratios.

• Guide every student toward attaining her or his full educational potential.

• Provide students with opportunities to get involved with governance where appropriate.

• Address system weaknesses, but preserve, build upon and respect present strengths. Adapt current programs to replicate excellence where it already exists.

• Seriously consider structuring programs so that students develop bilingual competency to provide the best chance of lifelong success in a society that will require more and more globally educated people.

• Assure that students are exposed to state-of-the-art teaching methods and technology.

• Recognize the importance of pre-school programs and create a universally accessible, high quality, pre-kindergarten education throughout the region.

• To attain academic, extra curricular and social equity, all students should enter Middle School and High School at the same grade level, as opposed to a staggered approach.

• Identify and maintain a uniform Middle School definition.

• Construct new schools, as required, consistent with state guidelines related to efficient sizes. Locate new buildings within the region where they will provide easiest access to the largest number of prospective students.

• Utilize regional facilities to their utmost potential including traditional community uses.

• Safe and efficient transportation must be provided. Full consideration should be placed on minimizing busing distances in determining which schools students should attend.

• After school programs are very important and students should be provided with transportation, where economically feasible.

• Provide continuing learning opportunities for teachers and assistants, including online educational opportunities and on site professional development workshops.

• Recognize that varied curriculum offerings are necessary to appeal to different aptitudes and learning styles. Some offerings should be expanded and enriched such as: the unified arts; the expeditionary learning model at the Middle School level; independent study options; senior year capstone projects; and programs offered via affiliations with institutions of higher learning.

• Expand the integration of high school classes with vocational courses.

Few things in life are as important as educating our children. In our geographic area, as in most others, there is a strong need to improve the quality of education being provided. A strong educational system is the backbone of a strong state economy.

Creating a new regional system will squeeze waste, duplication and inefficiencies out of the cost structure and free up funds to address deficiencies that now exist and build on our strengths. Using taxpayer funds to maximize efficiency is seen as an important objective, as is allocating a significant portion of savings generated under the regional concept toward improved educational quality. Achieving educational excellence throughout our region will carry a price tag, but what better way to invest any savings than in educating our children?

The Governance Plan

How the regional system is organized and managed will be key components in determining the system’s success. Acceptance by area citizens will depend in large part on these perceptions:

• Will regionalization improve educational quality?

• Will the new system be more efficient?

• Will each voter have an equal voice selecting School Board members?

• Will each Board Member have an equal say determining policy?

• Will all communities be treated fairly?

• Will student opportunities improve or diminish?

• Can we transition into a larger system and still retain the advantages of living in a small town with the comforts of small schools?

• Will our professional staff see positive benefits?

• Can a plan be created and implemented which is credible enough to assure area voters that regionalizing will improve the quality of education and lower cost at the same time?

The following governance plan attempts to address each of these and many other germane issues.

Under the regional concept envisioned, there will be one overall system responsible for all K-12 education within the 6 communities. The system will be governed by one regional school board with 9 members. Each member will have one equal vote and will be elected to serve a three year term. 3 members of the board will complete their terms each year, on a rotating basis.

Board members will be elected by popular vote to represent one of nine equal areas within the region. A professional demographer will be retained to divide the region into equal ninths, based on population. The geographic lines chosen will be reviewed after every national census, and changes made if necessary, to assure that each area continues to represent one ninth of the region’s population.

Board members must reside within the area they represent. Every effort will be made to assure that each of the nine areas covers more than a single community, the objective being to help residents shift their thinking about education in the future to a regional context rather than focusing on one community.

Although board members will be elected from a geographically distinct area, board members will be expected to represent and advocate for all children and all citizens within the entire region.

There will be one Superintendent of Schools and one administrative staff operating from a central office.

One regional education budget will be developed by the Superintendent and approved by the Regional School Board each year. Thereafter, public hearings will be conducted in each of the nine areas referenced above. Following the hearings, there will be a region wide referendum on the budget each year. Approval will require a simple majority of votes cast. Therefore, the budget approval process will give every voter in the region an equal voice, following the one person/one vote rule.

Local influences over education will be retained through creation of School Advisory Groups (SAG) of reasonable size at each school. The SAG’s purpose is to offer a resource to provide feedback and advice to principals and teachers related to school issues, thus more effectively connecting schools to the community. The SAG’s will be advisory only and will have no statutory or supervisory roles.

All students will attend the regional public schools, with no tuition choice to schools, private or public, outside the region. Since some students will already be attending schools outside the region under town paid tuition arrangements when the regional system is adopted, those individuals will be grandfathered and that same opportunity will be provided to all other children within that same family. The intent of this recommendation is to provide family continuity, for one generation of children, in situations where educational relationships are already established.

As a new feature, residents within the region may choose to send their children to any public elementary or middle school within the region, as long as capacity exists subject to guidelines to be established by the new Regional School Board. Neighborhood schools will be expected to give priority to children residing in their neighborhood as well as to Arrowsic students since that town has no schools.

The Regional Board will assume responsibility for the operation and maintenance of all school facilities. We strongly recommend the establishment of maintenance accounts and capital reserves by the new region.

Ownership of existing school facilities will be transferred to the new regional system and ownership of new or replacement buildings will reside with the regional system. The new region will enter into any debt or bonding obligations required to finance K-12 education within the region.

Major board decisions, such as closing a school or replacing the Superintendent, should require a 2/3^rd vote. The new Regional Board should establish such ground rules at one of its initial meetings.

If a school is closed for educational purposes at some future date, ownership of that facility would revert to the community which owns that building when the new region is created.

Regional School Board meetings will be rotated among every school in the region.

School Board compensation should be established by the Transition Team within limits of enacted state statutes.

The Regional Board shall refer all vocational education issues related to The Regional Vocational Center to the Department of Education for advice and if necessary, resolution.

Finally, the committee recommends that the new school system as a whole, and its nine different regional designations, be given names, not numbers. The Transition Team should select a naming process which encourages public involvement. The new Regional School Board should approve all names.

It will take a few years to adjust educational thinking to reflect the proposed regional structure. However, the committee became convinced that within a few years the public will be thinking only about the regional system, just as thinking has evolved relative to our regional hospital.

The recent select State Panel Report, Brookings Institute Report, and The Case for Cooperation identified huge benefits associated with regionalizing K-12 education across the State of Maine. By comparison with some areas, our region is tiny and the committee believes lends itself to an orderly transition into the regional system being advocated.

The governance recommendations presented here are straight forward and if accepted, will provide the tremendous benefits envisioned by this committee.

The Financial Consequences

The financial consequences of creating and implementing a Regional School System combining Bath and Union 47 towns are clearly strong and positive incentives to regionalize. All other things being equal, the immediate savings for tax payers related to transitioning into a Regional System will be approximately $1,579,000 in the annual school budget of the newly formed region and actual savings could be much larger.

Savings of $250,000 per year or more will be generated by eliminating one Superintendent and staff. Additional administrative savings should be achieved in the future after a more detailed evaluation of what proves effective in an efficient organizational structure.

Major savings, equaling approximately $1,362,000 per year, relate to elimination of tuition payments by communities within the region. Under the proposed system, tuition payments from one community to another will be eliminated. Students living in the newly formed region will be expected to attend public schools within the region, except for extraordinary situations, thus eliminating tuition payments from towns which have been under the Union 47 umbrella for students attending Middle or High Schools outside the region. Students who wish to do so may attend schools outside the region, but will be expected to pay their own tuition except for those in the grandfathered status recommended in this report.

Since there are adequate resources to accommodate more students within the region and student/teacher ratios are relatively low, elimination of tuition payments will result in dollar for dollar savings within the new region. More than 100 new students can and should be added with little financial impact and absorbed into the planned operational structure. As enrollment trends continue to drop within the proposed region, it will be helpful from both programmatic and cost view points to have students who live in the region attend schools within the region.

Additional savings will materialize as the regional system matures under guidance of the new Regional School Board and Administrators. Among the areas holding greatest savings potential over the long term are:

• Combined purchasing economies

• Consolidated collective bargaining and region wide labor contracts

• Facility consolidations into the most effective and efficient units

• Consolidated program offerings

• Consolidated transportation costs

• Coordinated planning functions

• Combining bonding opportunities

Discussions have been held with the State Department of Education relative to the State’s assumption of Bath’s annual debt service of $1,081,000 related to past school facility projects. The State is already paying Bath’s portion of that debt service associated with construction of the Vocational Training Wing at Morse High School, which is approximately 50% of the annual total, and will continue to do so in the future.

In the event of regionalization, the State indicated a willingness to consider paying the balance of Bath’s school facility debt service, in one form or another, since it may appear unfair to impose that obligation on taxpayers of Union 47 towns.

After months of financial study, the benefits of consolidation, streamlining and the economies of scale, appear certain to produce real savings is this region. However, it must also be noted that a priority recommendation of the Regional Study Commission is that educational quality be improved under the new regional structure. To upgrade quality, it is conceivable that most or all of any savings generated by regionalization will be rolled back to address areas demanding improvement. Therefore, although savings will be substantial, the extent to which taxpayers realize any tax reductions arising from the more efficient Regional School System will depend on future administrative and school board decisions.

Pro-forma budgets have been developed and analyzed for the proposed new school region reflecting only those savings noted above. In working with possible budgets, the Committee has been told by the State Department of Education to assume that Maine’s future education subsidies into the new region will be equal to or greater than its past collective subsidies to local communities within the region. Overall state subsidies will not diminish.

Regional educational costs, of course, must be allocated back to the five towns and Bath. The Committee is recommending an allocation methodology it believes to be fair and one that will stand the test of time. The suggested approach gives equal cost allocation weight in each community to the number of students enrolled, the 2000 population census and state valuations. Therefore, each community’s share of the region’s total education costs will be calculated based on the number of its students in the system, its total population and its ability to pay (i.e., the state valuation) with each factor given an equal weight of 33.3%, 33.3% and 33.4% respectively. The relative value of the three variables may fluctuate each year, but equity should be maintained among the towns and Bath since each community’s allocated share of regional educational costs will only rise or fall based on region wide changes or movements in these indices. No single factor should dominate the percentage of regional costs allocated back to each community, since each variable has an equal weight. At the outset, some communities will appear to benefit more than others, but economic outcomes will vary over time with changes in enrollment, population and/or valuations.

Long term, the regional system should prove to be much more efficient and cost effective for everyone than the present two district arrangement. Much of the gross waste caused by excessive duplication and redundancy will be eliminated. Moreover, both teachers and facilities should be more efficiently employed by requiring all regional students to attend regional schools. Today some 100 to 150 students per year from Union 47 attend schools outside the region and tuition payments are made by their communities. Economies generated can be used to improve educational opportunities or help reduce the burden on taxpayers, or some combination of both.

Beyond doubt, from a financial view point, the positive merits of the proposed regional system are profound.

The following spreadsheet is intended to be representative of the outcomes expected in the first year. It reflects current expenditures and revenues on a community by community basis for the current fiscal year. The two columns on the far right of the sheet under “Proposed Region” are proposed expenditures and revenues summarized on a regional basis for the same period of time. The net overall savings would be the $1,579,000 shown.

At the bottom of the sheet is a spread of actual local appropriations this year, compared to what the distribution might have been on a community-by-community basis under the regional concept. This distribution reflects a combination of Department of Education inputs and utilization of the 33.3/33.3/.33.4% formula recommended in this report.

The committee believes the results shown paint a reasonably accurate picture of likely first year outcomes. However, new legislation is probably required and more attention must be devoted to this by the Transition Team to assure optimal results which are fair and equitable for all taxpayers.

The numbers shown on this spread sheet portray a hypothetical situation under the regional concept. Actual numbers will be higher or lower each year depending on changing expenditures and revenues influenced by all the variables impacting education such as enrollments, programs, facility requirements, labor contracts, property valuations and transportation.

While we can predict with certainty that numbers will fluctuate each year, the committee is equally certain that the regional concepts proposed here will be more efficient and cost effective than the present systems.

Facilities

The committee undertook a detailed examination of schools located within the proposed region giving consideration to their locations, capacities, physical conditions and utilization rates. Much of that data is reported here, but the committee also recognizes that school buildings often take on a life of their own and become almost irreplaceable assets for historic reasons or because they fulfill vital community needs. Thus, even with powerful facts and compelling arguments, it is often difficult to convince citizens to replace, let alone relocate, existing schools.

The committee believes the merits of creating a regional system are so powerful that those great benefits should not be lost by debating the issue of whether or not one or more schools should be eliminated or relocated. Therefore, our recommendation is that existing schools continue to be used into the foreseeable future, i.e., perhaps for at least five years. Thereafter, the Regional School Board should make decisions relative to school utilization and new construction based on the merits; what is the best facility option for the largest number of potential students, while maintaining a balance between educational quality and cost effectiveness. Since replacement of the Woolwich School is well advanced, the committee believes that process should continue in an orderly manner.

While recommending continued utilization of all other existing schools for a few years, the committee recognizes that cannot be the long term answer for the new region. Some facilities are very old, others are small and inefficient by contemporary standards, some facilities are inadequate to meet today’s educational requirements and still others need extensive repairs. Indeed, there was strong sentiment among some on the committee that we recommend replacement of Morse High School as part of the regional plan, but in the final analysis, all agreed that major facility decisions be left to the new Regional Board.

A review of the facts leads to interesting conclusions.

Findings of Fact for Existing Schools in Bath and Union 47

CURRENT SCHOOL ENROLLMENT

Morse High School (grades 9-12): 719 (capacity of 820)

Bath Middle School (grades 6-8): 397 (capacity of 500)

Dike/Newell School (grades K-2): 296 (capacity of 360-380)

Fisher/Mitchell School (grades 3-5): 287 (capacity of 290)

Georgetown Elementary School (grades K-6): 86 (capacity of 120)

Phippsburg Elementary School (grades K-6): 147 (capacity of 175)

West Bath Elementary School (grades K-6): 149 (capacity of 160)

Woolwich Elementary School (grades K-8): 296 (capacity of 400)

Note: New Woolwich School could possibly include a pre-k group

PROJECTED SCHOOL POPULATION (2006-2009)

*** Data from Maine State Planning Office, December 2001

TEACHER –STUDENT RATIOS – 2006

K-5 6-8 9-12

*These student-teacher ratios reflect grade 6 only, whereas Bath and Woolwich offer programs for 6-8.