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Georgetown University professor, Carroll Quigley, in his book Evolution of Civilizations (1961, Liberty Press), described how societies are born out of disorder, go through a period of increasing development, “peak” out, then go through a protracted period of decline. His thesis not only seems to apply to civilizations, but loosely to smaller social units as well such as; corporations, sports teams, television shows and...schools.

After years of expansion, Maine schools, like our society, are now organized so that they must undergo continual expansion or face collapse. They seem to have passed Quigley’s fourth, or “peak” period, and are now in a state of decline; not necessarily in quality of education, but in level of enrollment and a top-heavy administration system built up over the years to oversee schools of much larger student bodies.

“Fort Fairfield’s enrollment has dropped fourteen percent in the past ten years, which amounts to a decrease of ninety-eight students,” said Marc Gendron, S.A.D. #20’s new Superintendent. “The biggest projected drop in students statewide is going to be in the next eight years. It’s not just Aroostook County, it’s every county in the State of Maine. Statewide, people are having less kids. In Aroostook County, people are having less kids and we do have some challenges with people moving out.”

Gendron reflects on past enrollment numbers as a frame of reference, “Every student from Caribou to Houlton can fit in Presque Isle High School and they’d still have less students than they had twenty-five years ago.”

The State Legislature recently passed a law requiring the consolidation of Maine’s nearly two hundred school districts down to around eighty Regional School Units (RSU). However, the consolidation plan was, like most controversial plans, piggybacked onto the main budget bill, leaving legislators no opportunity to try the plan on its merits alone.

“There was no vote where the legislators said, ‘Let’s vote on school consolidation,’” said Gendron. “It was part of the big budget bill and was passed at the last minute.”

Fort Fairfield currently pays $1.8 million of S.A.D. #20’s $6.18 million annual budget which would mean any savings from consolidating into a RSU would translate into about a thirty percent savings to Fort Fairfield taxpayers.

“The taxpayers are not happy and that’s why we’re dealing with this,” said Fort Fairfield town manager, Dan Foster at a recent public hearing held at the Fort Fairfield Middle/High School cafeteria. “We have had three referendums within the last four or five years - LD 1, Palesky, and Taxpayer Bill of Rights. The bottom line is the taxpayers are not happy; they really feel that in the State of Maine the tax burden is too high and there’s all kinds of documentation to support that.”

Gendron added, “If we don’t do something about cutting education costs on a more statewide basis, education officials were afraid the next measure would dictate what cuts would be made and we’d have even less say than we have now.”

Currently, education in Maine consumes about $2.3 billion - which amounts to a third of all tax dollars raised.

About seventy-five people attended the public hearing at the FFMHS cafeteria and patiently listened as Foster and Gendron presented what they currently know about the consolidation plan and how they intend to go about complying with State law.

“Fort Fairfield is a little unique in that we formed a community planning committee,” said Foster.

The planning committee consists of the S.A.D. #20 school board: Kelly Blaisedell, Ted Bowker, Jay Edgecomb, Kendall Shaw and Larry Girvan; The town council: Ruel Flannery, Steve Rogeski, David McCrea, John Herold and Mitch Butler; and four citizens: Jeanette Condon, Rob Lagnor, J.R. McGillan and Jeff Ashby.

“These folks will be taking time out of their lives to try to understand the issues and try to make good, quality decisions that will positively impact the community of Fort Fairfield and our school system for many years to come.”

While the State has proposed a Regional School District #2 for Fort Fairfield and surrounding communities, it has left it up to those communities to figure out for themselves with whom they will partner and make a “lifetime” commitment.

“It’s like a forced marriage,” said Gendron. “You’ve got two years to find a spouse that you’re going to live with for the rest of your life. Because right now, once you join a RSU, there’s nothing in the law that’s going to let you out of it.”

The planning committee for Fort Fairfield is currently exploring five options. There is a “Northern Tier” option that would comprise Fort Fairfield, Caribou, Limestone, Caswell, Connor, New Sweden, Westmanland (Union 122) and Woodland with an option to include Washburn, Perham and Wade or not. The “Southern Tier” would include Fort Fairfield, Easton, Mars Hill, Blaine and Bridgewater, also with the Washburn/Perham/Wade addition, or not. Another option being explored is the “Middle Tier” of Fort Fairfield, Caribou, Limestone and Caswell only.

The so-called “Northern Tier” may be a little easier to fund financially since there is a broader tax base and more population, but it would give up to 49% of the voting power to the City of Caribou on the newly-formed RSU school board. The Southern Tier would place Fort Fairfield in the driver’s seat with a 42% voting share, but with higher costs due to lower total property values and population.

“Our school board will no longer exist,” said Gendron. “They will turn over their power to the new regional school board.”

While the details are still in the preliminary stages, it is being considered to give each RSU board member a certain number of votes respectively, based upon their town’s population and upon on 1,000 total votes divided amongst an eleven to thirteen member board.

“This system was set up to give each member a fair amount of votes, but have less people represent them on the board.”
All contracts for teachers, janitors, bus drivers, etc. will be with the new RSU, causing the various towns with differing pay and benefit packages to have to come together in massive regional contracting negotiations and merge all of their various ideologies and packages into one cohesive unit. According to Gendron, most cuts right now seem to be in “systems administration” - that is essentially the superintendent and his/her office staff - no principals or teachers. Indeed, the law states no teachers or staff can even be cut in the first year of the RSU.

“They say it’s not about closing schools. Well, in the first year, it’s illegal to close schools and illegal to make any staffing cuts of any type. So, you’re not going to see any savings in the first year because you can’t let anybody go. But some time in the future the discussion will be about closing schools.”

It’s hard to close schools politically, but Gendron describes a sort of “reverse psychology” where the law moves the citizenry to make that decision for themselves, rather than legislators at the State level.

“This has a terrible feel to it,” said Gary Sayers. “They don’t want to admit that closing schools is on the table and everyone knows that’s the only place money can be saved. If you can imagine the eventuality where you get voting blocks of different schools voting against other towns, imagine the feelings of Fort Fairfield if Caribou, New Sweden and Limestone decided to close our schools.”

“This whole law is about money,” said Dan Foster. “There are no incentives to act, only disincentives if you don’t. How do you build a community around money? You don’t. Money’s a necessity, we have to deal with it, but I agree it’s a terrible feeling.”

Sayers also reflected upon the decreased opportunities kids will have in a large school system. “There are opportunites that will be taken away. There are kids in this town that were able to play sports and be involved in music; they’ve never been cut from anything. That’s the benefit of raising a kid in a small community. Colleges want to look at resumes of kids from towns like Fort Fairfield because they look and see the kids were involved in everything and what an amazing background they have.”

Some see a reduction in school districts as a means of greater control over education. A concept which Gendron doesn’t totally disagree with. “Right now the state has to deal with over 200 units. So whenever they want to make a change in a law, for example in curriculum, or they want to change on budgeting, they have to go and get that message out to two hundred different organizations. If they get it down to eighty, the State’s also going to save money by having a much easier group to control. The fewer districts you have, the better control - the better the ease - the State will have in really setting agendas with what they want you to teach.”

Another issue to consider is school property, such as athletic fields, currently shared with the towns’ respective Recreation Departments. If the new RSU doesn’t consider it in their best interest, the various towns may lose access to those fields and any improvements they may have put into them in the past.

Towns may choose to opt out in a referendum to be held next year, but there will be “penalties” for opting out of an RSU, penalties that amount to reduced state funding. Gendron predicts that Fort Fairfield could stand to lose a total of $93,000 if they chose not to consolidate. “You can still vote no, take the reduction penalty and still come up with ways to save money locally and keep your school controlled locally.” Once the State reduces its stipend to the school, no further reductions would be expected since they will have satisfied their budget requirements.

The latest start date for RSU’s in Maine is July 1, 2009. Any further questions can be directed to Dan Foster at the town office, or Marc Gendron at the S.A.D. #20 Superintendent's office.