PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Maine Department of Education officials are optimistic that the state’s 12 new regional service centers will help school districts save money by fostering more collaboration.
The 12 regional service centers, or RSCs, will serve 84 school districts and 56 percent of Maine’s K-12 student population, according to the DOE. Three RSCs have been selected for Aroostook County, in the St. John Valley, central Aroostook County and southern Aroostook County.
Rachel Paling, spokesperson for the DOE, said the goals of establishing the RSCs include increasing school administrative efficiencies, providing shared services to multiple districts and ultimately improving educational programming. Through the RSCs, districts can share a superintendent, have the executive director serve as their superintendent or keep their own.
“The department is extremely encouraged by the work of educational leaders in Aroostook County,” Paling said in an email.
“Recognizing their declining student enrollment and workforce challenges, they are proposing an investment that will allow districts in the region to continue to provide, and improve upon, high quality, diverse, student programming while also recruiting and retaining high-quality qualified staff, particularly for advanced placement courses, foreign language courses, nursing, curriculum and assessment coordination, food service, and transportation.”
Under the program, the state will cover 100 percent of an RSC’s costs in accounting, payroll and student information systems and 55 percent of an executive director’s salary and benefits.
Districts joining RSCs also can receive an additional $94-per-student allocation in 2019. In 2020, that additional funding will be determined by the DOE.
School districts had to apply together as a group. Residents in those districts will now have to vote on whether they want their district to join the RSC.
If approved by voters, the Central Aroostook Regional Service Center will be comprised of 10 school districts, including those in Presque Isle, Caribou, Easton, Fort Fairfield and Washburn.
Brian Carpenter, superintendent of Maine School Administrative District 1 in Presque Isle, said he is somewhat skeptical about the RSC program partly due to its roots in Gov. Paul LePage’s bid to consolidate school districts and reduce superintendents.
Nonetheless, Carpenter said he’s working to bring the Central Aroostook RSC to fruition and aiming to make the most of it.
“We’re going to see if it works. I think it could be a great thing,” Carpenter said.
But, “if state doesn’t fund it, it’s going to be a short lived endeavor,” he added. “There’s a lot of questions still unanswered.”
For instance, Carpenter said, “if we don’t need to purchase services from the service center, then are we penalized for that?”
Under the program, he said districts will have to pick at least two services to use from the RSC out of several categories, such as professional education or advanced placement classes.
On that front Carpenter said, the RSCs could help smaller districts bring students more class options, such as for foreign language classes — something that high schools in Ashland and Easton already are doing. The two districts share a Spanish teacher, with the teacher based in Easton and live-streaming to a classroom in Ashland.
Carpenter noted that districts also have been sharing some services prior to the RSC program.
MSAD 1 and MSAD 45 in Washburn already are sharing a superintendent, as are RSU 39 in Caribou and MSAD 20 in Fort Fairfield.
“It will be up to voters if it moves forward,” Carpenter said of the regional service center proposal.
Residents will vote to decide if they want their district to join the RSC via an inter-local agreement. Carpenter said residents in districts covered by the Central Aroostook RSC will likely be voting on the initiative in the November elections.
