I am completely dismayed by the fact that I can leave Freeport for nearly five weeks and upon return find school negotiations in nearly the same place as when I left. Now, after these groups have had more than 10 negotiation meetings and 20 hours with mediation, I am doing my best not to come to the final conclusion, as some have suggested, that the RSU 5 Working Group (made up of Durham and Pownal school board reps, and attended by the RSU 5 lawyer and RSU 5 finance director) is negotiating with a singular view of a windfall for the future RSU 5, or possibly with the intent of undermining a withdrawal vote and punishing Freeport for its desire to explore withdrawal in the first place. I sincerely hope that this is not the case.

The Freeport Withdrawal Committee did not approach this negotiation with a hard-line, Freeport-only perspective. Case in point, they immediately offered grandfathering for all RSU 5 students for seven years beyond the required period and without using it as leverage. This would mean that all 2014-15 fifth-graders in Pownal and eighth-graders in Durham would be guaranteed the ability to attend and graduate from Freeport High School. Oddly, it did take some time before the RSU 5 Working Group agreed to this offer, potentially causing worry for some parents and students.

The Withdrawal Committee has also offered to be the School of Guaranteed Acceptance at the middle-school level for Pownal students. (Durham cannot commit to educate these students without risking overcrowding or a forced expansion in their own school.) When these two offers are combined with the Working Group finalizing a deal with Brunswick as RSU 5’s School of Guaranteed Acceptance at the high school level, then no disruption of RSU 5 students will ensue.

This restoring of school choice for future RSU 5 students is particularly relevant in light of a Durham survey showing that only around 36 percent would send their students to FHS if given school choice. Thirty-six percent would be approximately 46 students. Even given a margin of error at an extremely generous 20 percent, this would add an additional nine students for a total of 55 students. And then if that number were rounded up further by another 10 percent to create an even larger buffer for Durham students, the total would reach approximately 60 students.

Added to this number would be the Pownal students from Freeport Middle School. With guaranteed acceptance at FMS they would have the right to continue through FHS and graduate. By adding an allocation for 60 students from Durham (offered at state average tuition) to the seats available for Pownal students from FMS, the total would be approximately 120 students. Based on current populations, this would yield a total estimated FHS population around 450. There is a population bubble that will affect the size of the school through the initial grandfathering phase, but a cap of 450 allows both Freeport and RSU 5 the necessary cushioning.

This leaves me wondering why the Working Group will not commit to an amount of reserved seats in line with (again, the Withdrawal Committee offer is actually above) the amount of students interested in attending FHS. And also, any RSU 5 student enrolled in Freeport schools would be guaranteed the ability to finish FHS. Suggesting that Pownal students attending FMS would be ousted from attending Freeport High School and forced to go to Brunswick High School against their will is completely inaccurate. I’m left questioning the Working Group’s recent allocation regarding this scenario.

The withdrawal agreement is intended to be a baseline framework, a distribution of assets and debt, and an assurance that no student is left without a school at any grade level. This isn’t about quibbling over imaginary capacity numbers. We have those numbers: 492 students was the 80 percent capacity number presented by the RSU 5 architect as appropriate for a high school of Freeport’s size (he stated that only much larger schools are run at a higher efficiency percentage). The number was rounded at times to 500 (for ease of discussion as noted in school board documents), but the real number was 492 and this included the square footage of the portables and STEM space sorely in need of repair and practically uninhabitable as stated in several school board minutes. So in reality, this number may be lower; hence, the 450 number previously offered by the Withdrawal Committee, providing for cushioning for planning and renovation.

There is also no reason that Freeport cannot choose to admit more RSU 5 students at Freeport High School in the future if there is room. Nothing in the withdrawal agreement would prevent them from doing so. But, being forced to set aside an overabundance of seats beyond these numbers, hiring staff based on those seats and then having them go unfilled at the last minute, with very real implications for staff layoffs or last-minute program cutbacks, significantly undermines a school system and the morale of the teachers, administrators and students. The Withdrawal Committee has offered the Working Group seats reserved at the high school to accommodate future RSU 5 students at these cushioned numbers, and by doing so they have addressed the needs of the future RSU 5 while retaining necessary flexibility for future Freeport school planning around population bubbles.

It is important to note that over this past year prior to these discussions, the last superintendent and the full RSU 5 board consisting of members currently both on the Working Group and the Withdrawal Committee all agreed that Freeport High School was over capacity with any number over 500 when they sent renovation plans through for a vote in all three towns. This was accompanied by an incredible sense of urgency expressed by the superintendent and the high school principal at many of the school board meetings that I sat through. The townspeople of Durham and Pownal voted down the renovation and expansion, despite the fact that their own school board reps voted for it. The Working Group initially asked to fill capacity to 535 seats at FHS in negotiation with the Withdrawal Committee, yet these school board reps now on the Working Group were not willing last year to risk any more overcrowding of Freeport High School. They are not willing to risk overcrowding the middle school of the Durham Community School as part of the withdrawal agreement, so why force the potential for overcrowding upon Freeport High School now? This appeared to be a negotiating position contrary to their own recent views and one that would put their own students in conditions for which they themselves had expressed extreme disdain. It feels like a strategy to go to battle and feign compromises had lost sight of what is really important here, which is quality education and appropriate space and resource allocations for all students in the region.

Brunswick has excess space. So long as RSU 5 has a School of Guaranteed Acceptance for high school (which looks to be Brunswick with a decision forthcoming), the plan on the table makes sense within our three towns, as well as on a regional scale. This School of Guaranteed Acceptance is not the school that all RSU 5 students must attend. It just a safety measure especially if there are significant increases in RSU 5 student populations.

Asking Freeport to set aside and create space for an even larger amount of kids (seats that may sit vacant and Freeport would not be allowed to fill), and at a discount, significantly undermines Freeport’s ability to control its own school future and the quality of the high school that the future RSU 5 would want some of their students to attend. Unfortunately, such requests appear as stalling tactics. The goal of a withdrawal agreement is not to make one side suffer while the other reaps large benefits. The process set out in the statute is not created as a means of punishing the withdrawing party for questioning the current system and considering withdrawal. The use of phrases like, “a price to pay for wanting to withdraw,” which I have heard in negotiating meetings, leaves a bitter and resentful taste. The withdrawal agreement is designed to create a fair split and not to debate about withdrawal, chide one side for desiring to withdraw, or force a vote one way or the other. Unfortunately at the mercy of a vaguely written statute and no judge that might normally be present in such a split, what is fair for all three towns seems to be pushed aside for what burden you should have to bear to be allowed self-determination. What a message to send to our kids.

The RSU 5 board meeting on July 30 provides an opportunity to finalize a withdrawal agreement for the November vote (the timeline that both groups had initially agreed to as the target date). It is becoming pretty clear that if the Working Group obstructs this vote, then we will all be in for another year of negotiation. Freeport should not be negotiating a 10-year high school deal under duress and one that puts an unreasonable and excessive burden on future school boards and taxpayers if they are not required to do so. And especially given the reasonable and generous offers that have been made beyond the 11 categories that are required in a withdrawal agreement. There may be other options available to Freeport over the coming year, but there are two options right now: Encourage the parties to vote through a fair and reasonable agreement, and if that doesn’t happen, to stick it out until one can be made. I have confidence that all parties involved can come together as a group to finalize a fair and balanced agreement. We owe this to all of the students both present and future.

Mandana MacPherson

Freeport