Local Schools, Regional Support Oral Testimony February 5, 2007 Presented to the State of Maine's Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs and The Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs by Maryann Minard, Ph.D., Curriculum Coordinator York School Department   Senator Bowman, Representative Fisher and Distinguished Members of Both Committees:  My name is Maryann Minard and I am the K-12 Curriculum Coordinator for the York School Department. I have spent 33 years working in education, 21 of them as a public school elementary teacher.  I have taught students from kindergarten through graduate students, from special education children to gifted children in my classrooms.  I have worked in districts that exceeded 100,000 students in size, and I have worked in districts with as few as 900 students.  Lest you think that I appear to be the educator who cannot keep a job, please know that my many moves were because of my husband's military career. I have served the New England Association of Schools and Colleges for eleven years, as a Commissioner for Public Elementary and Middle Schools and currently as a Commissioner for American and International Schools Abroad.  I am proud to be in my 15th year as a Maine educator.  I ask you, as legislators, to demand an exact financial accounting for the savings that the LSRS proposal states will occur because of regionalization.  And I ask you to balance those numbers with the costs that will be exacted in the effectiveness of our system of education. We live in complex times.  Times when education has never been more important. Times when home and family are experiencing unprecedented stresses.  Our children mirror those stresses, and often reflect the problems that our American and global societies face each day. By the time a child graduates from a Maine high school, she will have spent only 10% of her life in school.  Our school system must maintain a close, personal connection with students and with their families. We need to partner closely with our parents, be accessible to them and be responsive to their needs. With local school systems, we are accountable to our communities; we are educational leaders who can be active, involved and recognized in our towns.  I speak from my experience when I say that the most effective school systems I have had the opportunity to work in, and with through NEASC, have all been school systems that have 3,000 students or less. Research on effective district sizes mirrors what I have known through personal experience. The school/community partnership that we speak of so often has to be of a manageable size to make it personalized and to allow educators, parents and children to share the common vision of what education means to them in their communities.  Commissioner Gendron refers to Fairfax County VA as a model of an effective mega-district. Fairfax County is a high achieving district, but it comes with a price tag that is hefty.  I would like to point out that the per pupil expenditure in Fairfax County in the 2007 year is $12,917, that is $2,772 higher than the FY 07 per pupil expenditures in Maine.  My written testimony includes details on their administrative structure.  I also made some phone calls to verify my internet research on Fairfax County.  I spoke to a reading specialist at Hayfield Elementary School who says that the communication with her superintendent is through televised broadcasts or huge assemblies.  I spoke with a beleaguered elementary principal who told of being overwhelmed with attempting to be all things to all people. Please look very carefully at the Governor's proposal that states it will reduce Central Office staff by 50% and determine how that will play out in reality. You must be responsible researchers and consumers of information, evaluating every piece of information you are given. You must verify every fact, because certainly some facts have not been presented in their entirety. It falls squarely upon your shoulders to seek the answers that may not be easy to determine. I was disappointed this morning to visit the maine.gov website and see that the GrowSmart survey with 500 respondents is headlined as an indicator that a majority of Maine citizens support the LSRS plan, while not a word is mentioned on the website about the hundreds of citizens who have voiced their concerns about LSRS at every regional informational meeting across the state.  The decisions you will make, the bill you bring forth to the legislature, will have a profound impact on Maine's future.  Please be certain that you have all the facts and that the facts include the true cost- in dollars and cents, and in the price we will pay if we move to mega-districts that will make our school systems more impersonal when the need to reach out in personal ways to families and children have never been greater. Our children need a K-12 experience that is cohesive and connected.  That takes visionary, effective and strong leadership that is coordinated and concentrated, not diluted by being spread too thin over a large geographical region with responsibility for, in some cases, nearly 18,000 to 20,000 students.  Thank you for your attention, and I wish you wisdom as you dedicate the days ahead to creating a plan that will work for our children.