Deputy Commissioner of Education William Beardsley will take under consideration a suggestion from Rep. Joyce Maker of Calais that he postpone a process that had many of the county's unorganized territories (UT) parents and children in an uproar.
     In April, Education in the UT Director Shelley Lane surprised families living in Trescott, Cathance and Marion when she sent them notifications that as of the 2016/2017 school year their elementary school children would be attending the UT's elementary school, the Edmunds Consolidated School, and that busing for their high school students would only be available to Washington Academy. In her letter Lane cited transportation costs as the reason for the change and noted that school choice was never a legal right in the UT. Beardsley explained at a May 6 meeting held in Whiting that Lane estimated that the statewide UT would save about $250,000 with the changes. He added, "Shelley Lane has been trying to streamline and 'right‑size'" the UT education system. He added, "I'm not sure we handled it well in terms of how we explained it in the letters."
     Beardsley attended the meeting at the Whiting Community Building to discuss the decision, and by the end he admitted it was not the most fun he'd ever had but he had learned a fair bit that he was going to take back to Augusta to discuss with Lane. While at times prickly, the over 60 parents, education professionals, municipal leaders and local legislators grinned and even laughed as Beardsley made his statement at the end of over two hours of discussions about bus routes and long‑standing relationships between the Washington County UT and neighboring school districts within the AOS structure.
     Beardsley started off the meeting by saying, "I understand there are some really serious issues." He added, "I'm trying to get up to speed with particular bus routes."
     According to AOS 96 Superintendent Scott Porter about 33 UT elementary-age children attend schools outside of the UT in either AOS 96 or AOS 77. He broke the numbers down as follows: Whiting Village School, eight; Elm Street School in East Machias, 11; Lubec Elementary School, six; Rose M. Gaffney in Machias, four; Perry Elementary School, three; and Bay Ridge Elementary School, one. There is no UT high school, but six high school students would be affected by the change in bus transportation.
     "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," said one parent to Beardsley, summing up the general feeling in the room. "Why bother to continue with this exercise. If you're concerned about the busing then fix the busing, but don't take the kids out. We all here have one thing in common: Our kids are where we want them to be. They're happy."
     Beardsley had his road atlas in hand and referred to it more than once as the discussion got down to the nuts and bolts of busing. The topic figured prominently in the discussion because at the heart of Lane's decision were transportation costs. Porter and many parents laboriously explained that most UT children attending schools in an AOS were driven by some other means than UT school busing or any busing at all. "If all these students went to Edmunds, all these students and buses will cost more than the savings projected," Porter stated. Other parents described the geographic spread and the number of miles that a UT bus route would by law have to take in order to pick up children. Some told of how their child would be driven right by the AOS school they currently attend and where they want to stay and continue on for another 10 to 30 miles to get to the Edmunds school.
     A system of "friendships" has developed over time, explains Porter in a separate interview. When school systems in different municipalities have students going to and fro, it makes sense for different school system buses to have cooperative agreements, and many do. The UT school bus had been a part of that mix to some degree.
     AOS 77 Superintendent Kenneth Johnson explains that six UT high school students will continue at Shead High School and that the Eastport School System will now send a bus to Edmunds for student pick up and will also pick up high school students from Dennysville and Pembroke, a route that used to be run by the UT bus. The EUT will pay a bus fee for the UT students on the Eastport bus. Porter notes that while AOS 96 usually has a few UT students attending Machias Memorial High School, there are none right now.
     Porter explains, "The EUT [bus] doesn't currently go to all the UT students; the parents usually drive the students. The EUT would have to go down many, many roads." He notes that the EUT would need to purchase a new school bus at a cost of about $90,000, with a bus driver at about $30,000 plus benefits, which if it includes health insurance can be significant. Then there's the question of even finding a bus driver. "We can't get drivers," he adds with frustration. "It's far more complicated than they [Beardsley and Lane] think."

Tuition and school choice questions
     Another unknown in the EUT cost calculations are the different costs of elementary tuition for various AOS schools versus the UT school. Tuition ranges from $5,889 at Elm Street to $11,616 at Lubec, with Whiting in the middle at $8,997, says Porter. He does not know the UT school's tuition, noting that it's hard to find exact figures anywhere. He hoped to be given some "concrete information" at an expected meeting with Beardsley and Lane. At the meeting, a parent noted, "Shelley should have had all this figured out before she made the changes."
     "So much of this angst could have been avoided if the EUT had involved educators and administrators from this part of the state in the process," says Penny Guisinger, a Trescott resident with two children at the Whiting Village School. The school stands to lose about $70,000 in tuition revenue, said Porter, but his greater concern is the disruption to children and families.
     The larger question is whether UT students have school choice and, if they don't, if they should. For over 50 years they've had it, says Porter. Beardsley stated repeatedly that they don't but that because of the situation "we are making significant accommodations well above the law" with an appeal process during the "transition." His statement did not sit well with parents. Many shook their heads at the thought of going through the appeal process every year.
     Johnson notes, "When the commissioner said that EUT kids don't enjoy school choice by law, for the elementary kids that's true. But my understanding is that there's no EUT high school, so they have choice."
     Senator David Burns suggested that because school choice in the UT has been a long‑standing practice that "any kind of shift should be long‑term. It's a little much to be asking parents to go through this [an appeal process] every year." He added, "Maybe the law needs to be looked at. There's a lot of passion here."
     Rep. Maker asked Beardsley if he would consider postponing the process in order to gather all the information about bus routes and costs as well as tuition differences between the AOS and UT schools that could turn out to negate cost savings to the EUT. "Give them a year's notice," she suggested. "We're not going to move on with it this way." Beardsley replied, "Rep. Maker's suggestion is a very good one that I will take into consideration." He added that he fully believed in flexibility within school districts, and that it might well be that the law about UT school choice needed to be clarified. Rep. Will Tuell was also at the meeting.