A developing partnership between Good Will-Hinckley and Kennebec Valley Community College could provide new educational opportunities in Fairfield for high school and college students across Maine.

The partnership would allow the community college to offer the state’s first associate degree program in agriculture, on land that the college is negotiating to buy from Good Will-Hinckley.

If the land deal goes through, students at a new magnet high school that Good Will-Hinckley plans to open this fall would be able to take courses at the college.

“The best deals happen when both parties see a benefit, and we both see a benefit,” said John Fitzsimmons, president of the Maine Community College System.

The land deal has been in the works for more than a year and should be completed by summer, Fitzsimmons said.

The college would buy 690 acres of Good Will-Hinckley’s 2,450-acre campus on Route 201 in Fairfield. The land includes 13 buildings and a 300-acre organic farm where the college would offer various agricultural programs.

The deal would allow the college to expand beyond its 62-acre campus on Route 139 in Fairfield, where less than three acres are suitable for construction, Fitzsimmons said.

With an enrollment of 2,300 students, Kennebec Valley is the second fastest-growing community college in Maine, after Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, Fitzsimmons said. Additional land and buildings would allow the college to increase its enrollment to 3,800 students within five to seven years.

Fitzsimmons said he believes Kennebec Valley’s agricultural programs would help reverse the decline of the farming culture and industry across Maine and New England.

The college would begin offering courses on the Good Will-Hinckley campus by fall 2012, Fitzsimmons said. In the beginning it would be a satellite campus. The college would likely build a residence hall there in the near future to address an absence of housing on the existing campus.

Fitzsimmons declined to discuss the full cost and scope of the college’s expansion while the land deal is pending.

Good Will-Hinckley plans to re-open its Averill School in September, said Glenn Cummings, executive director at Good Will-Hinckley. The school closed in 2009 and laid off more than 100 staff members because it lacked enrollment and funding.

Founded in 1889, the school was a residential program for youths from troubled homes who had complex academic, behavioral and emotional challenges, school officials said. It once served as many as 130 students in grades 7 through 12, but enrollment had fallen to about 50 residential students, largely because of dwindling referrals from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

The Averill School will re-open as a magnet school, offering a nontraditional high school program for students interested in agriculture and the environment, Cummings said.

A magnet school is a public elementary or secondary school that follows the same laws and regulations as other public schools but has a particular social or academic focus. The Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone is the state’s only magnet school.

The new Averill School will target students who struggle in a traditional school setting, as well as those who seek an active, outdoor-oriented education. The curriculum will emphasize real-world learning experiences, community service, entrepreneurial enterprise and parent involvement.

The re-opening of Averill School got a boost this month when Gov. Paul LePage introduced a biennial budget proposal for fiscal 2012 and 2013 that includes $730,000 each year for Good Will-Hinckley.

The new Averill School meshes with LePage’s stated desire to better prepare students for Maine’s work force. Given the pending partnership with the community college, it also provides a pathway to achieve his campaign goal to offer associate degrees to students who complete a fifth year of high school.

The Averill School will open first to about 100 day students from towns around Fairfield, Cummings said. Tuition would be paid by each student’s school district.

If the Legislature approves LePage’s funding request, the school will begin accepting about 100 boarding students in January 2012.

Because the Averill School is located in central Maine, about six miles from Interstate 95, Cummings hopes it will draw students from across the state.

“We’re now in a position to have a statewide reach,” Cummings said. “There are students across Maine who might think, ‘That’s the place for me.’ “

Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard can be contacted at 791-6328 or at:

kbouchard@pressherald.com

 

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