STACYVILLE, Maine — Residents of Patten, Stacyville, Sherman and Mount Chase continue their efforts to withdraw from RSU 50 as they try to resurrect their former Katahdin school district.
A public hearing on the withdrawal was held Thursday evening at Katahdin Elementary School and drew a small crowd of about 25 residents. Few questions were asked at the hearing, which was designed to review the negotiated withdrawal agreement.
Andy Kaye, a representative from Mount Chase, said that the past 18 months have involved a series of back-and-forth negotiations with RSU 50 in order to decide how the two groups could amicably dissolve their current arrangement.
“They were obligated to negotiate with us in good faith, and they have done that,” Kaye said. “There were obviously some points during negotiations that were contentious. But we have been able to work through it and came away with a decent agreement.”
According to the agreement, all land and property in the former communities of SAD 25 will remain with the withdrawing towns, who will have to form a new, smaller school district. In addition, the new district will receive a payment of $200,000 from RSU 50’s surplus account. This amount was the initial contribution made by SAD 25 when RSU 50 was formed.
An additional payment of about $240,000 (41.47 percent) is expected to be given to the new district by July 1, 2018, after the final audit has been completed.
Although separating, the two districts will continue to work collaboratively to provide transportation. A multi-year reciprocal agreement also will be put in place with the goal of maintaining community services currently shared between the two schools.
Also, any students residing in the withdrawing communities who attend classes at Southern Aroostook Community School, will have the right to continue their education at that school.
The withdrawal group will now submit its agreement to the Maine Department of Education for review. Additional public hearings will be held once the state signs off on the deal and a November referendum question will be the final vote on the matter.
Residents of all four communities must vote in favor of the withdrawal, otherwise it will not pass. The town of Moro negotiated an independent withdrawal agreement to provide its students with a tuition-based education and is not part of the current plan. Hersey has filed for an extension on its withdrawal plans.
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- Andy Kaye, right, speaks to a small audience Thursday evening at Katahdin Elementary School to give an update on the planned withdrawal from RSU 50. With Kaye is Richard Schmidt, another member of the withdrawal committee. (Joseph Cyr)
RSU 50 was formed in July 2011 and encompasses the former SAD 25 and CSD 9 school districts. The district lies in northern Penobscot and southern Aroostook counties and is approximately 460 square miles, making it one of the largest geographic school regions in Maine. The RSU serves 12 communities: Crystal, Dyer Brook, Hersey, Island Falls, Merrill, Moro Plantation, Mount Chase, Oakfield, Patten, Sherman, Smyrna, and Stacyville.
Richard Schmidt, one of the organizers of Lead Our Community’s Access to Learning, or LOCAL, which is a grassroots effort aimed at creating the new district for more local control of education, praised the efforts of current RSU 50 Superintendent Todd LeRoy in the negotiations.
“We would not be where we are today without him,” Schmidt said of LeRoy. “Things were contentious at times, and he is in a difficult spot because his duty is to RSU 50.”
LeRoy was instrumental in the two sides finding a common ground to facilitate the withdrawal process, even though it would likely mean he would no longer be employed. Should the Katahdin area communities be successful in pulling out of RSU 50, LeRoy has stated previously that it would not make sense economically for him to remain as superintendent for RSU 50.
Pulling out of RSU 50 has been discussed since February 2016 when a proposal to close Katahdin Elementary School as a cost-cutting measure for the district drew the ire of those in the communities of Patten, Sherman, Mount Chase, Stacyville, Hersey and Moro.
In June, a referendum question saw an overwhelming 84 percent of those voting were in favor of starting the withdrawal process from RSU 50.
Should the measure pass, RSU 50 will continue, but will only encompass the communities of Southern Aroostook Community School. The new Katahdin school district would be operational by the fall, 2018 school year.
Jon Ellis, a member of the withdrawal group, said that the vast majority of the members of the public he has spoken to has been supportive of the effort.
“People really do not want to lose our schools,” Ellis said of the Katahdin Elementary and Katahdin Middle-High School buildings.
