Potential School Reorganization Vote Will Not Happen in November
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—A school reorganization vote planned for November has been postponed according to School Superintendent Michael Zboray.
Zboray sent out an email to AOS board members and town managers informing them of the decision to postpone a vote to potentially reorganize the schools within the district.
There have been two forums about the potential reorganization so far. One was in Trenton and the other in Southwest Harbor.
“I wanted to make sure I communicated with you all about the proposed referendum for reorganization. We had been thinking of placing it on the November ballot. However, following our two community meetings, the Reorganization Planning Committee (RPC) has decided not to put the reorganization referendum on the November 4 ballot,” Zboray wrote.
“This decision was made to allow for additional time to facilitate broader community understanding and feedback regarding the proposal. This extended period will foster a more informed and engaged discussion, ultimately leading to a stronger path forward. The RPC will plan more community forums toward the end of August to avoid competing with the summer season. The towns that still need to be scheduled are: Mount Desert, Cranberry Isles, Tremont, and Frenchboro.”
Both Southwest Harbor and Trenton municipal boards have recently shared concerns about the potential school reorganization plans.
While all eight towns in the AOS will vote on whether to support reorganization and join the RSU or not, five of those towns have the power to basically veto the proposal by voting against reorganization in the majority. Those five towns are: Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, Southwest Harbor, Tremont, and Trenton.
Voters in all five of the towns listed above must vote to support reorganization for it to pass and be enacted.
The remaining three towns—Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, and Swan’s Island—will still vote on the matter and should the plan pass will be a part of the new RSU if the town voted in the majority to support reorganization. If reorganization passes but one or more of these three towns—Cranberry Isles, Frenchboro, and Swan’s Island—votes to not support reorganization, then that town, or towns, will have to figure out how to survive as a school unit on its own.
SOUTHWEST HARBOR’S CONCERNS
In Southwest Harbor, those concerns centered around Southwest Harbor losing its K-6 students to other schools, while gaining students in seventh and eighth grade.
Three Southwest Harbor select board members attended a school reorganization meeting at Pemetic School, June 30, Chair Noah Burby said, July 9. They sat in different spaces and participated in different groups.
One of those attending was board member Natasha Johnson.
“And I was also surprised that it felt like a very repeated presentation because it was very generic, so it came across as it was designed to be a presentation that could be repeated regardless of what community you were in,” Johnson said at the July 9 meeting. “And that bothered me because I think that the town of Southwest Harbor is in a unique position. I mean, all the communities are unique, but our position in this reorganization aspect is losing our K-6 and gaining the 7-8 from the rest of the towns coming in.”
"And that wasn't really discussed at all,” Johnson continued. “And that was very surprising to me. I would have, I guess, naively assumed going into it that the presentation would have been, was going to have been more specifically tailored to the differences of what we could anticipate to see within our own municipality.”
Southwest Harbor Town Manager Karen Reddersen said she’d received a number of public inquiries about whether the select board would have a reorganization discussion on its meeting agenda item about these school changes.
“And there was a request to have that brought forward,” Redderson said. “There were people that attended the meeting on the 30th, that they wanted some additional Southwest Harbor conversations on that topic.”
Johnson suggested inviting the director of the Harbor House, a local community center, to any potential meeting.
“But even if people are upset with anything, we don't have the power to change anything,” Johnson said.
“So I don't think it would be a good idea for us to have it on our agenda,” Selectboard member Carolyn Ball said, “if that's what you're suggesting; I don't think it would be a good idea at all, because we don't have the ability to influence that except as citizens.”
Others in Southwest Harbor worried that if they didn’t vote in favor of the reorganization, it meant they’d have to tuition in their students to Mount Desert Island High School. However, they would not. If Southwest Harbor rejects the plan (or if any of the other four specified towns do), nothing would change.
TRENTON AND THE ISSUE OF BUDGETS
While some have worried about the restructuring of individual schools, Trenton was worried about budget implications in ways that haven’t been previously discussed.
Under the plan, all the individual school budgets will be under one RSU budget.
That means that while voters can pass or reject the budget by attending that RSU budget meeting, voters will likely not attend if based on past attendance for approval of both the MDI High School budget and the current AOS budget.
Under the current structure, each school must create its own budget and the AOS creates a budget that impacts all the towns, much like the high school and county budget does.
Trenton, when meeting with its auditor, James Wadman, worried about those implications to the town’s budget.
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