The Maine Department of Education is offering more than $3 million in grants to encourage schools to consolidate and share services between districts.
In a statement, Acting Education Comissioner Robert Hasson says the grants will be used to create new models for schools to share services. The department says that could include districts sharing teachers, maintenance contracts or technical education centers.
This isn’t the state’s first effort at school regionalization. In 2007, the state passed a law reducing the number of school districts in the state from 290 down to 80. The law led to fewer school administrators, but many towns wanted more local control, and much of the work was undone in the following years.
Steve Bailey, the president of the Maine School Superintendents Association, says he prefers this incentivized approach, rather than the mandated consolidation of a decade ago.
“Here’s some reason to try to coordinate and consolidate — as opposed to being forced to do that, with penalties imposed if you didn’t — is a much wiser approach, I believe,” he says.
The grants come after Gov. Paul LePage signed an executive order on Monday to free up excess funds. In the past, the governor has been critical of the state’s rising education costs as well as the number of superintendents in the state.
In October, LePage said he would use his upcoming budget to pressure districts to reduce the number of school administrators.
