The director of Regional School Unit 12's adult education program in Wiscasset has started an online petition aimed at getting Wiscasset's school committee to continue the program as the town goes independent.

Anne Fensie said the petition isn't an attempt to fight for her job. She has no expectations she would be hired and, if that was her concern, she wouldn't be doing the petition, which she knows may make the committee members uncomfortable, she said in a telephone interview March 26.

“I'm fighting for the community,” she said.

Committee Chairman Glen Craig is taking issue with the petition's description of the panel's stance on adult education. The petition states, in part: “While the school board recognizes the high quality of programs at Wiscasset Adult & Community Education, they are not interested in continuing to support it in the new Wiscasset School District ... In total, over 1,500 course enrollments that would happen ... will be lost.”

The petition is misleading, Craig said. “Those words never came out of our mouth. We are still open to suggestions about adult ed,” he said at the committee's March 26 meeting.

Committee members said they asked Fensie to come back with a smaller budget that doesn't hike the director's pay nearly 30 percent, to $45,000.

In an interview March 27, Fensie said she's the lowest paid adult education administrator in Maine. She was trying to bring the pay more in line with what others make, for whoever gets the Wiscasset job, she said.

Fensie said she is willing to reduce that request and is looking for other ways to cut costs. But she expressed concern about the program's stability if whole areas are cut, such as enrichment or career courses.

School committee members and Dorr said the program the district has provided in Wiscasset may be too big now that the town will be on its own starting July 1.

“I think we should look for a simpler (program),” committee member Eugene Stover said.

Members expressed support for a part of the program that helps people get high school diplomas. Regional School Unit 1 in Bath is willing to consider overseeing it for about $10,000, Dorr said.

By its second day online, the petition had more than 60 names, listed along with towns in and outside Wiscasset, and as far away as Delaware. Fensie said she hopes a couple hundred people put their names on the petition.

Anne Cole-Fairfield of Westport Island confirmed she has added her name. She has a nephew at Wiscasset Middle School and said she knows Wiscasset has to be careful with spending, but that people who lose their jobs need someplace to go to train for new ones.

“I feel adult education is not a luxury,” Cole-Fairfield said.

Wiscasset-area residents are welcome to come to North Whitefield for adult education classes Regional School Unit 12 offers there, Superintendent Howard Tuttle said March 26.

Fensie's petition can be viewed at petitions.moveon.org/sign/keep-adult-education?source=c.em.mt&r_by=7688.