The town of Sebago will start the process of withdrawing from the Lake Region school district.

Residents voted, 335 to 58, in a referendum Tuesday to file a petition for withdrawal with the district’s Board of Directors and the state education commissioner and to authorize a withdrawal committee to spend up to $25,000.

Allen Crabtree, a member of the Friends of Sebago Elementary School, which circulated a citizen petition to force the referendum, said the group hopes to negotiate a new contract with the district that would make it more difficult to close the town’s school.

Sebago joined the district in 1966 and hasn’t amended its contract since then, Crabtree said.

Also known as School Administrative District 61, Lake Region has 1,800 students from Bridgton, Casco, Naples and Sebago in its six schools.

Sebago Elementary School, a K-5 school, had an enrollment last year of 87 students – a fraction of the size of the district’s two other elementary schools.

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Talk of withdrawal began when a proposal arose to reopen the Crooked River school in Casco, said Sebago Town Manager James Smith.

Although relieving overcrowding at the Songo Locks Elementary School in Naples was the primary reason for reopening the school, proponents of the withdrawal feared that the project would lead to the closure of Sebago Elementary.

A referendum in December on the Crooked River proposal failed, but a less expensive version has emerged, Smith said.

Without safeguards in place, Sebago residents will always have to live with the fear of losing the school, said Crabtree.

“We’ve had this threat of closure hanging over our heads,” he said. “We would like to have it resolved.”

The next step in the process is to appoint a four-member withdrawal committee, which would work with a committee appointed by the district to try to come to an agreement.

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The town would need to vote again in order to leave the district and can stop the process at any time.

Other towns in recent years, including Freeport and Raymond, have voted in favor of pursuing withdrawal from their respective districts but, in the end, decided against it.

Leslie Bridgers can be contacted at 791-6364 or at:

lbridgers@pressherald.com

Twitter: lesliebridgers


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