Cost per square foot for school construction is a largely meaningless statistic unless you know precisely what those square feet contain. Alexis de Tocqueville a French political theorist/journalist visited the USA in 1831 to study our democracy. Near the end of his stay he predicted that democracy would only last until voters discovered that they could vote themselves a free lunch. (or a free education?)
I don't know the average tax burden of the average family living in Bar Harbor but I feel confident that a family with 3 children taking advantage of public school education is getting the best deal for their buck they'll ever experience. The average cost of a private elementary school tuition in Maine is $14,573. (Connor Emerson's tuition in 2022/23 was $14,583) Let's do the private school math: 3 kids x $14,573 = $43,719 x 8 years = $349,752! But that figure is added to by the subsequent 4 years in high school. The average cost of a private high school education in Maine is $29,614 per year. Let's do the math: 3 kids x $29,614 x 4 years = $118,456! So the average cost of a grade 1 through grade 12 private school education for a family with 3 children is: $349,752 + $118,456 = $468,208. Heck let's just round it off and call it half a million dollars. Bar Harbor's numerous tax increases over the past 12 year period make it impossible to calculate precisely how much the parents of those 3 kids have paid in property taxes so I'll just use a perhaps overly generous estimate of $6,000 a year (it would have been much lower 12 years ago). Let's do the math again $6,000 x 12 years = $72,000. Now lets subtract that figure from the total cost of the average grade 1 through 12 private school education in Maine: $468,208 - $72,000 = a (non taxable) net savings of...drum roll please...$396,208!
So while it is certainly true that building material, labor, and transportation costs have increased the per square foot cost of constructing public schools I have a strong hunch that parental pressure to build Cadillac quality schools might be playing a major roll as well.
Were Alexis de Tocqueville alive today he'd probably say, "Don't say I didn't warn ya!"
Cost per square foot for school construction is a largely meaningless statistic unless you know precisely what those square feet contain. Alexis de Tocqueville a French political theorist/journalist visited the USA in 1831 to study our democracy. Near the end of his stay he predicted that democracy would only last until voters discovered that they could vote themselves a free lunch. (or a free education?)
I don't know the average tax burden of the average family living in Bar Harbor but I feel confident that a family with 3 children taking advantage of public school education is getting the best deal for their buck they'll ever experience. The average cost of a private elementary school tuition in Maine is $14,573. (Connor Emerson's tuition in 2022/23 was $14,583) Let's do the private school math: 3 kids x $14,573 = $43,719 x 8 years = $349,752! But that figure is added to by the subsequent 4 years in high school. The average cost of a private high school education in Maine is $29,614 per year. Let's do the math: 3 kids x $29,614 x 4 years = $118,456! So the average cost of a grade 1 through grade 12 private school education for a family with 3 children is: $349,752 + $118,456 = $468,208. Heck let's just round it off and call it half a million dollars. Bar Harbor's numerous tax increases over the past 12 year period make it impossible to calculate precisely how much the parents of those 3 kids have paid in property taxes so I'll just use a perhaps overly generous estimate of $6,000 a year (it would have been much lower 12 years ago). Let's do the math again $6,000 x 12 years = $72,000. Now lets subtract that figure from the total cost of the average grade 1 through 12 private school education in Maine: $468,208 - $72,000 = a (non taxable) net savings of...drum roll please...$396,208!
So while it is certainly true that building material, labor, and transportation costs have increased the per square foot cost of constructing public schools I have a strong hunch that parental pressure to build Cadillac quality schools might be playing a major roll as well.
Were Alexis de Tocqueville alive today he'd probably say, "Don't say I didn't warn ya!"