More than 400 people packed the gymnasium at Katahdin Elementary School for the special board meeting to decide the fate of students in their school. The meeting featured passionate pleas by Katahdin area residents to keep their high school open.
RSU 50 is a consolidated school district comprised of Southern Aroostook Community School, Katahdin Middle-High School and Katahdin Elementary School.
The board was considering closing Katahdin Middle-High School and sending its 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 that scenario, KMHS would have been closed and a new school name, colors and mascot would have been chosen for the combined school.
The closure was one of 11 options the school board has been reviewing for the past year as a way to reduce the costs to taxpayers. Last year, two referendums were needed to pass a school budget for 2015-16 in the amount of $9,478,679.
The Katahdin school system is comprised of the towns of Patten, Sherman, Stacyville, Mount Chase, Moro, Hersey, Silver Ridge, Benedicta, Crystal, Medway and T2R6. Southern Aroostook is comprised of Oakfield, Crystal, Dyer Brook, Island Falls, Merrill and Smyrna Mills.
After listening to residents speak for about two hours, a motion was made by vice-chair Robin Crandall to go forward with the plan to move the seventh- and eighth-grade from KMHS to KES and to close KMHS, with grades 9-12 sent to the Dyer Brook campus.
A roll call vote, using the weighted-vote system, resulted in a tally of 425 in favor and 563 opposed.
Voting in favor of the proposal were board members Jeff Prozzo (Smyrna), Greg Ryan (Island Falls), Steve Walker (Island Falls), Connie Theriault (Stacyville), Larry Greenlaw (Oakfield) and Crandall (Oakfield).
Voting against the measure were: chairman Phil Knowles (Sherman), Rick Hall (Mount Chase), Nicole Mitchell (Sherman), Stephen Porter (Crystal), Leslie Gardner (Patten), Everett Boutilier (Merrill), Barbara Burton (Dyer Brook), David Kay (Patten) and Mary Moore (Hersey).
There is currently no board member for Moro.
“How can you sit here and make this motion,” asked an emotional Hall. “Probably in the past month I have heard from 1,000 people and two were in favor of consolidation. I think tonight we heard one person. If we allow closing this school, we will destroy the economic structure of this entire region. We need this school for the cornerstone of a foundation for our children.”
Hall’s statement drew a roaring standing ovation from the audience.
Prozzo said he felt the economic impact debate was arguable, but acknowledged it was an emotional decision.
“Change will happen,” he said. “You can cry and scream against it, but it will happen. This area is going through hard, hard times. It is costing us twice as much money (to educate) and we have a teacher-student ratio of 12-to-1. It’s an emotional decision, but it will not destroy your town.”
There are 678 students enrolled in classes in RSU 50. There are 342 in the Katahdin system and 335 at SACS.
Declining enrollment in the district has had a compound effect, according to Mike Hammer, interim superintendent. Hammer joined the district in July after the previous superintendent Larry Malone resigned. From October 2014 to October 2015, the district has lost 45 students based on the most recent enrollment figures. There are 109 KMHS students in grades 9-12, and 89 students in grades 9-12 at SACS. The student-teacher ratio is about 12 to 1.
“I came into this position when the district was working on its second budget, after the first one was shot down,” Hammer said. “I spoke with a lot of the town managers and discussed what was causing the budgets to be shot down. Most of the town managers said residents were on fixed incomes and could not afford their taxes.”
If the district were to close KMHS, Hammer said the district could reduce its budget by about $621,916.
Hammer said he was not in favor of doing nothing, because it meant the district would continue on its current path of not being able to bring educational programs to the students that are needed, since the budget would likely once again need to be slashed considerably.
Hammer said the board has cut “all the areas you can possibly cut” and that any further reductions would start to negatively impact students.
“I am probably working myself out of a job, but doing nothing (status quo) is not an option,” Hammer said. “There are things you have already cut that should be put back.”
By consolidating into one high school, Hammer said the district would be able to offer students more options in the classroom.
Many residents spoke in opposition of the consolidation and begged the board not to close the high school. The majority of residents in attendance were from the Katahdin school region, with only a handful representing Southern Aroostook.
Many of those in attendance stated they feared closing the school would be a death blow to the community, while others asked why the district could not simply keep grades pre-K to 12 in one building in Katahdin.
“You are getting ready to bankrupt this community,” added Lance Hunley of Bendedicta.
Some questioned why Southern Aroostook Community School was not “on the chopping block” and the students from that school sent to the Katahdin schools. Hammer explained that scenario was taken off the table by the board because a large percentage of Katahdin High School juniors and seniors – and many SACS juniors and seniors – were already traveling north to attend the Region Two School of Applied Technology in Houlton.
Resident John Qualey asked how much time students would be required to travel on busses and when the board could not provide an answer, Qualey stated “I take great insult in that you don’t know these simple figures. How can you make a decision without all the facts?”
Qualey stated he did his own study of the distances and discovered some students on the far end of Benedicta could be subjected to a 36-mile bus ride just to get to school.
Brian McNally of Sherman, a former member of the RSU 50 board, suggested the group should explore the idea of keeping all of the Katahdin students in one building in Stacyville, either at the high school or the elementary school.
Terri Hill of Mount Chase presented a petition to the school board with more than 700 signatures from residents in the greater Katahdin region asking the group to reconsider its plans and to also look at keeping all of the students in one building in Katahdin.
Previously, the board eliminated the option of consolidating KES and KMHS on the grounds that neither building was equipped to handle all of the students without spending money to renovate or expand.
The high school is not equipped with a fully-functioning kitchen, therefore food is prepared at the elementary school and brought over to the high school. The high school bathrooms are also not designed for smaller children and would need to be remodeled and there is no playground equipment at the high school.
“Schools matter,” said resident Raymond Foss. “We will be talking about what was lost 50 years from now.”
The board will revisit its consolidation options at the next regular meeting scheduled for Monday, Feb. 8, at 6:30 p.m. Katahdin Elementary School.
