We understand that there has been a lot of apprehension for RSU 5 since last December and we value the commitment parents, teachers, and administrators provided in ensuring our students felt safe and welcome throughout the district as we finished out the 2013-14 school year. We are committed to ensuring Freeport has the opportunity to vote on their withdrawal plan this coming November so as not to perpetuate uncertainty within our school district.

The Freeport Withdrawal Committee and RSU 5 Working Group have come to general consensus on much of the Freeport Withdrawal Plan; however, the capacity up to which the Freeport Withdrawal Committee is willing to accept tuition students at Freeport High School and the associated tuition rate the RSU 5 Working Group is willing to pay remain unresolved. The RSU 5 Working Group has made significant compromises in our positions on School of Guaranteed Acceptance, school capacity limits and tuition.

When RSU 5 was formed, Freeport would not agree to form an RSU with Durham and Pownal unless we gave up high school choice and sent all of our students to Freeport High School. This was not a state requirement for consolidation, but we agreed, making a commitment to Freeport High School.

If Freeport withdraws from RSU 5, the remaining towns of Durham and Pownal will be left without a high school, and Pownal without a middle school. Under this circumstance, the Department of Education will require RSU 5 to establish a 10-year contract with a high school and middle school that will accept any student from RSU 5 that wishes to attend – a so-called School of Guaranteed Acceptance (SGA). The purpose of the SGA is to ensure that no child is ever denied access to schooling.

Never before has a withdrawal from an RSU left the remaining towns obligated to establish an SGA in parallel with withdrawal negotiations. While both parties have come to agreement that Freeport Middle School will be the SGA for Pownal, the SGA for RSU 5 secondary students remains to be determined. Given the very obvious gaps in the RSU withdrawal statute for this type of situation, the RSU 5 Working Group has maintained that the SGA for secondary students must be settled before an agreement can be reached on Freeport’s withdrawal from the RSU, not only to meet our obligation under the law, but most importantly to provide some assurance for the children in Durham and Pownal. The commissioner of education has confirmed that he will not approve a withdrawal plan that does not represent an agreement between the two parties.

Though the original position of the RSU 5 Working Group was that Freeport High School should be the SGA for RSU 5 students, the Freeport Withdrawal Committee had concerns over the capacity of the building and therefore could not commit Freeport High School to be the SGA for all RSU 5 students. The RSU5 Working Group agreed to have further discussions with Brunswick regarding their ability to fill a SGA commitment at Brunswick High School if the Freeport Withdrawal Committee would agree to continue to take some RSU 5 students at Freeport High School under a proposed 10-year tuition arrangement to the extent that student enrollment at Freeport High School would not exceed a cap of 530 students. With a maximum projected annual enrollment of 340 Freeport resident students at the high school through school year 2021-22, the RSU 5 Working Group was confident the 530 cap was sufficient to accommodate any RSU 5 student who chose to attend Freeport High School and would ease the Freeport Withdrawal Committee’s concerns over exceeding the capacity of the building.

In more recent negotiations, the Freeport Withdrawal Committee proposed a cap of 450 students. The RSU 5 Working Group reduced its proposed cap to 500 students, which is approximately 80 percent of building capacity and considered the optimal efficiency of the existing building, according to the architect retained by RSU 5 in 2012-13 to develop the master plan and concept design for the Freeport High School renovation/expansion project. Though an agreement on the cap has not been reached, both parties have agreed to provide priority to seats at Freeport High School for any Durham or Pownal student enrolled at Freeport Middle School to preserve educational continuity for those students.

For the vast majority of Pownal families, the prospect of Brunswick High School as the SGA is a non-starter for many reasons, none the least of which are geographical distance and the desire to provide educational continuity for those students attending Freeport Middle School. In addition, a survey of Durham residents indicates that parents of school-aged children prefer Freeport High School over other area schools including Brunswick, Yarmouth, Greely and Lisbon Falls. Many Durham and Pownal parents appreciate the small size of Freeport High School and feel it is a good fit for the two rural communities. A cap at 500 is absolutely the lowest the RSU 5 Working Group can go and still uphold the right of first refusal for Durham and Pownal students that attend Freeport Middle School. Any lower will increase the likelihood that all RSU5 students will be subject to a lottery for seats at Freeport High School, which would foster resentment within the RSU, unwillingly separate students from their classmates and friends, and result in some Pownal students being sent to Brunswick High School. This is not an acceptable outcome.

The other significant hurdle to an agreement is the tuition RSU 5 would pay for seats at Freeport High School. The original proposal of the RSU 5 Working Group was the maximum allowable tuition rate for all secondary students. State law defines maximum allowable tuition to be a school unit’s actual per pupil cost or the state average per pupil cost, whichever is lower. Virtually all tuition agreements in Maine call for the sending town to pay the maximum allowable tuition, with rare exception. In fact, the maximum allowable tuition rate is what SAD 62 (Pownal) paid to Freeport prior to formation of RSU 5 (plus a debt service factor for expansion).

The Freeport Withdrawal Committee has never wavered from their stance that tuition should be the school unit’s actual per pupil cost. This is rarely done because the sending town has no vote, or influence over the receiving town’s school budget, leaving the sending town vulnerable to dramatic cost increases. Without any mechanism to control costs at the secondary level, the students that will suffer the most are those in grades pre-K through 8. In order to find a middle ground, the RSU 5 Working Group has made several compromise proposals that would pay Freeport more than maximum allowable tuition, but provide some protection for RSU 5 against dramatic spikes in tuition cost. These include paying the midpoint between maximum allowable tuition and actual per pupil cost, or paying actual per pupil cost with an annual growth cap if Freeport agreed to continue providing administrative services to RSU5. Given the norm for tuition agreements in the state, these are both very fair proposals.

The RSU 5 Working Group would like to restate once again that we continue to strive to have an agreement in place with the Freeport Withdrawal Committee before our children return to school in the fall.

The RSU5 Working Group members include Michelle Ritcheson, chairwoman, and Candace Decsipkes, Brian Pike, Naomi Ledbetter and Kate Brown.