After several budget workshop nights in recent weeks, Wiscasset's school committee and officials were getting creative March 26 and, at at least one point, getting funny. Talk turned to how to try anew to serve gifted and talented students, or as some participants described them, overachievers.

Maine's 2025 Teacher of the Year, Wiscasset Elementary's Becky Hallowell, said when she has students in her math class "clearly demonstrating competence far above what their peers are showing," she gives them more challenging work in the same math topic. Hallowell described her efforts as a dance between the different paces students are developing at. 

"I would love someone to bat ideas around with (and) figure out how to extend those opportunities to students," Hallowell said.

School department officials said the state calls for gifted and talented programs and reimburses districts for them two years later, but Wiscasset has for many years been unable to keep a gifted and talented teacher. "It would be neat if we could do something like get teachers who wanted to participate and pay them for a day or two to bat ideas around in the summer and create a program that would meet the needs of those students, because they are among us, and we don't want to lose them to another school because they have a gifted and talented program and we don't, and that is a real risk," Superintendent of Schools Dr. Kim Andersson said. She suggested teacher stipends instead of continuing to budget a part-time, and potentially still unfilled, job.

Committee member Doug Merrill said stipends would avoid the program’s being “hamstrung” by having only one person, plus it could save money. “You don’t have to worry about step increases (and) all those auxiliary costs.”

Andersson said the state only lets the top 5% of students be identified and served as gifted and talented. “But you can identify them in multiple disciplines in different categories. Everybody's gifted in something, in some way, like, we all have a thing,” she said.

“We all have gifts,” Chair Tracey Whitney agreed, smiling.

Said Merrill, “Hmm?”

Whitney, still smiling, told him, “You’ve got a gift.”

“When will it be revealed to me,” fellow member Christopher Hart asked. 

“Ah, you just wait,” Merrill said. 

The committee discussed budgeting $25,000 in stipends and another $5,000 for supplies, all for a few thousand dollars less than a part-time gifted and talented teacher. Andersson noted the programming teachers propose would go to the committee to consider. 

Whitney said she liked the stipends idea. “I’ve seen some very creative things come out of teachers … when there’s an offer, teachers that are motivated will step forward and do all kinds of wonderful things.”

“It should be easy to start (the programming) because it’s all going to be in-house,” Merrill said. “The people that are going to be teaching it are involved in building it.”

Andersson said she could talk to the state about “this alternative path” to serving gifted and talented students. 

In other budget developments, in a three and a half hour, March 23 workshop, Andersson explained she had pared from 13% to 10% the budgeted hike in health insurance. How much health insurance will really hike remained unknown. “I just lowered it hoping for the best,” she told the committee.

In the same workshop, Andersson floated having the school department not chip in with the town in 2026-27 for the school resource officer. She said, some years, the school department has paid it all; in other years, the town has; and in recent years, they have split it. “If we’re trying to reduce our budget, we could just shift that back to the town.” 

Vice Chair Jonathan Barnes suggested that be a last resort, because, he said, if the school department isn’t helping fund it, that risks the town changing the memorandum of understanding. “I’d rather not give all that control to the town,” he said.

SRO funding was added back into the school department budget in the committee's March 26 workshop, Andersson said in an email response to questions. 

In a March 19 workshop, members expressed their goals for the budget. Whitney said her goals included leaving wiggle room in the budget to be able to negotiate with the unions in good faith; another of her goals was hiring a middle high school principal. Sarah Hubert's resignation takes effect June 30. 

"I feel that that is a very important piece for our school," Whitney said of a principal. 

Member Brycson Grover said he agreed about negotiating in good faith. “Keeping good solid teachers is a must,” Grover said. 

Members voiced support for considering cutting a job when someone leaves it. Merrill said he has always favored adjusting jobs through attrition, “as long as it doesn’t affect the quality of education.”

“Absolutely,” Whitney said.

“That’s our main goal, no matter what,” Grover agreed.

Elsewhere in the discussion, Whitney commented on the budget, "I want to stay as close to the bone as we possibly can, because we owe that to the people in our community, but we can't jeopardize negotiation (with the unions). We can't jeopardize the running of our schools. We cannot (risk) cutting staff to the point where we're not functioning."

After the committee adopts a budget offer, the proposal goes to a town meeting where residents can consider, and potentially alter, it piece by piece, before it goes to a vote at the polls in June.

The committee plans another budget workshop for 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 31 in the Wiscasset Middle High School library. The latest draft was down to $11,295,300, which would be $551,181 more than the 2025-26 budget.