Staff Writer
WOODLAND — The Town of Woodland held their formal public meeting regarding the mandatory Regional School Unit (RSU) plan on Jan. 12 in the Woodland School gym. “We had a really good turnout for a small town,” said Woodland School Committee member Cindy Noyes.
Some community members were for the RSU, while others were opposed.
“I thought they asked a lot of good questions,” said Noyes, “but I couldn’t tell how people are leaning. I hope they’re thinking no, but at least they have the information they need to decide.”
“If we vote ‘no’ now, we can still join in another year if we can’t come up with anything better,” said one concerned citizen, though others were concerned that they would be penalized for joining the RSU after the fact. No conclusion, only speculation, was available for those concerns, which is why one participant suggested that the town not jump into something that they’ll be locked into.
Voting ‘no’ would mean that committee members and local citizens would go back to the table with another year to work out a plan for the school, while voting yes would make them officially part of the RSU.
“If we vote no, the state may not be happy and we might have a financial squeeze put on our school,” one participant stated, while others believe that joining the RSU would lead to a tax increase.
Though some community members still haven’t decided how to vote, the decisions of the Woodland Regionalization Planning Committee, the Woodland School Committee, and the Superintendent of Woodland Schools might as well be set in stone; they all encourage the residents of Woodland to vote “no” on the School Consolidation Referendum on Jan 27 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Town Garage.
“This plan focuses on system administration reductions and does not focus on the quality of education,” they all said in a joint statement, “the Department of Education reported that from 2006 to 2007, Woodland had the lowest overall average K through 12 costs per pupil in all of the school systems in the proposed RSU. Woodland’s 2008 grade 3 through 8 Maine Educational Assessment test scores were the highest or among the highest in all areas assessed for the proposed RSU member schools,” they added. “After having been involved in more than a hundred hours of talks, meetings and discussions, the School Committee voted without reservation to oppose this current plan as written.”
