The new school consolidation law, designed to merge smaller school districts into larger ones and hire one superintendent, supposedly to save on administrative costs, has much of the state up in arms, and it's no wonder that there's now a petition being circulated to repeal it. The Maine Coalition to Save Schools, spearheaded by Skip Greenlaw of the Deer Isle/Stonington area, is currently getting petitions in the hands of committees in all sixteen Maine counties to begin circulating them in hopes of getting 100,000 signatures - almost double the amount necessary to put the petition on the November 2008 ballot. The petition, "An act to repeal the school district consolidation laws," would first go to the Legislature hoping they would vote to repeal the law themselves, but if they didn't, Maine voters would then make the decision at the polls a year from now.

The new law has far too many flaws to list here. For one thing, many small towns would have to pay big bucks just to join, which in itself is unfair. Some towns are finding there are no logical school systems with which to merge. It's already been learned that a few, maybe more, teachers would get significant pay raises (the state won't be paying, folks, it will be the towns) because their pay scale will be below that of their peers in the newer system. So many problem issues have been identified that there are already over 60 bills scheduled to come before the Legislature to resolve them - so many, in fact, that we've already been told "There won't be time to consider them all individually." This announcement alone has many communities very upset, because it means they won't even have a chance to argue their case. Instead, "some" of the school consolidation problems statewide will be addressed and grouped together while the remainder may well fall by the wayside.

Maine folks are often "determinedly old-fashioned" in that they don't buy the argument that bigger is better, despite the Governor's assurances he'll push for the merger of as many government entities as possible. Maine people, generally speaking, believe that smaller schools can often do a better job of educating their students than their larger counterparts. They also have a problem with the state's argument that having mega-size school districts and one administrative unit will save money. It appears in many instances that while the state may gain on what it has to contribute toward education costs, the individual towns and schools lose (our own Southport, for instance, could be facing over a half a million dollars just to merge!) Most towns aren't too happy about turning their school real estate over to a larger school district, as intended by the new law.

Our own local school committees have been working very hard to meet the deadlines established by the new law, and have developed an acceptable (we think) new district in which we would join forces with Lincoln Academy, Damariscotta and Bristol schools, a logical coupling, we feel, since we share many similarities.

This new petition essentially asks that the new law be repealed and that we continue to operate our schools just as we have in the past. We feel almost every other Maine community shares that desire, too, and thus that the petition should have no problem getting the support it needs. We urge you to look for, and sign, this petition if you are of the same mindset. It's a way for Maine people to have a say in the direction of their state when it comes to educating its young folks. The new law has so many unanswered questions, it's not even funny, and we're sure we haven't even scratched the surface yet.