By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
HOULTON — The fate of Wellington Elementary School appears to be safe for at least a few more years.
On Monday evening, the RSU 29 school board decided not to begin plans for the school’s closure, but charge its facilities, transportation and curriculum committees to begin working on a plan that would show how the district could close the school in Monticello within the next three years, if it were to choose to do so.
That plan is contingent on whether enrollment declines significantly at the school.
During Monday night’s meeting, Superintendent Mike Hammer presented the group with the financial information related to keeping the school open. According to the data, for the 2012-13 school year the district spent $363,937 to run Wellington Elementary School, which has 57 students from pre-kindergarten to third grade.
If the school had closed in 2012-13, the district would have saved about $174,215. That is not to say, however, that Monticello residents would see a decrease in their taxes of that amount as it would be spread throughout the four communities that make up RSU 29 (Houlton, Hammond, Littleton and Monticello).
A school board has the authority to close a school, provided the state signs off on the plan. However, an individual town can then vote to keep their school open, but must assume all of the costs associated with running the school.
For Wellington School, only Monticello and Littleton voters can have a say in whether they wish to keep the school open, since they send the majority of students to that school. If that were to happen, residents in those two communities would have to pay the cost of keeping the school open in addition to their regular share of the RSU 29 school budget.
Hammer’s data solely represented what the financial impacts would be since the emotional impact to a student transferring to a new school is not easily quantified. The data also did not spell out how the additional students would fit into the existing buildings of Houlton Elementary and Southside schools.
“There is no immediacy to take a vote on this subject,” Hammer said. “You could do a non-binding referendum to see what the will of the community is.”
“For me, I would like to know what the will of the district is,” said board member Fred Grant. “The other piece that we haven’t talked about is what is the impact of closing Wellington, not from a financial impact, but as a real impact to the students. What happens to those kids? Do we go with modular classrooms? How do we accommodate them?”
Jennifer Johnston, the lone board member from Monticello, said she felt the cost savings would be less than what was stated because an additional bus run would be needed to bring students from Monticello to Houlton.
Transportation Director Joe Schneider stated he felt the students could be transported without the need for an additional bus run.
Johnston said if the district were to close the school, there would be a number of families who may not send their children to Houlton without a solid solution in place for where those students would be educated.
“There will be parents who keep their kid at home an extra year because they are not going to send a pre-K student on a bus at 6 a.m. to Houlton,” she said.
She also said the continued uncertainty over the school’s fate may lead some parents to pull their children out of Wellington.
Enrollment projections for the school look good for the next two years, with 16-17 new students slated to join the school. However, three years from now, the projected incoming class would be just four or five students, unless there was an influx of new families with pre-school-aged children to the town.
Board member Sandra Henderson made a motion to have the board not look at closing the school for at least three more years.
Grant said it would be a poor move to put the district into a corner by stating it would keep it open for three more years because it was impossible to say what the district’s financial situation would be from one year to the next.
That motion failed.
Instead, the board opted to place the task on its subcommittees to come up with a potential transition plan for the school.
In other agenda items, the board:
• Agreed to spend $15,500 to purchase a car for the school district. The vehicle will be used to transport a special needs student to Presque Isle each day that school is in session.
• Heard a presentation from Debra Melvin’s third grade class on recycling efforts at the school.
• Extended contracts for Curriculum Coordinator Rae Bates and Special Education Director Jan Neureuther at their current salary levels.
The next regular meeting of the RSU 29 board is set for Monday, July 1, at 6 p.m.
