ISLAND FALLS, Maine — Faced with a tough decision on whether to close one of its schools, the RSU 50 board opted Nov. 9 to postpone making any decision on consolidation until its Dec. 14 board meeting.
The board is considering closing Katahdin Middle-High School and sending the seventh- and eighth-graders from that school across the street to Katahdin Elementary School. The remaining students in grades 9-12 would be bussed roughly 22 miles up Interstate 95 to Southern Aroostook Community School in Dyer Brook.
Under this scenario, KMHS would be closed and a new school name, colors and mascot would be chosen for the combined school. The board unanimously agreed that it would put this question to a formal vote at the Dec. 14 meeting.
Members of the general public turned out in force Nov. 9 at the Island Falls Municipal Building to voice their opinions on the proposal. According to Interim-Superintendent Mike Hammer, the majority of those who spoke were in opposition to the consolidation movement.
“Most of the people that spoke were against consolidation,” Hammer said. “They don’t want to lose their identity as SACS (Warriors) and Katahdin (Cougars). It’s understandable.”
The consolidation proposal was brought forth by Hammer at the October meeting at the request of the board. The process of figuring out which direction the district should go began nearly a year ago, when school directors decided an independent review of its infrastructure should be done. That study revealed varying issues with all three school buildings in the district.
If the district were to close KMHS, Hammer said the board could reduce its budget by about $621,916. Numerous staff positions would be eliminated under this proposal.
Declining enrollment in the district has had a compound effect, Hammer said. From October 2014 to October 2015, the district lost 45 students based on the most recent enrollment figures. There are 110 KMHS students, and 90 at SACS. The student-teacher ratio is about 12 to 1.
Because the district has fewer students, it is receiving less state subsidy for education, which in turn is putting more of an economic burden on municipalities that are already stating taxes are too high.
Several other options have been discussed in the district, including the construction of new school buildings. Those options were removed from consideration at the Nov. 9 meeting by a vote of 14-1.
A proposal to keep pre-kindergarten to grade eight in their local schools and tuition all those in grades 9-12 to a different high school was eliminated from discussion back in January, 2015.
The decision to keep other scenarios on the table for discussion drew a much closer vote and forced the board to use its “weighted vote” method.
A proposal to simply consolidate the students of the Katahdin schools into one building and leave SACS untouched was removed from consideration during the meeting by a weighted vote of 592-407.
A motion was also made to keep a “status quo” proposal on the table. That measure narrowly passed by a weighted vote of 520-479.
Hammer said he was not in favor of doing nothing, because it meant the district would not be able to bring educational programs to the students that are needed, since the budget would likely need to be slashed considerably.
