What role will Wiscasset’s principals play in talks about consolidation?

A committee for the Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit began ironing out that and other details of the planning process on September 19.

Input from the principals and school staff needs to guide the facilities committee's work, district transportation and maintenance director John Merry said. The people in the schools are the ones who will know how to make the changes work best, he said.

Fellow committee member Ralph Hilton, an Alna representative to the district board, told the principals, “We don't have marching orders. We need your input on what you need to deliver education.”

The panel discussed adding the principals as committee members. But a large committee makes it impossible to find a time everyone can meet, district board chairman Hilary Holm said.

The principals could either serve as a subcommittee or be called advisers to the committee, committee members said.

Also during last week's meeting in the Wiscasset High School library, members talked about the tall order they have of investigating the many possible forms consolidation could take.

“Doing nothing is really not an option,” Merry said. “I think we need to concede the fact we have some issues.”

“We have to do something. We have very empty buildings,” district superintendent Howard Tuttle told committee members. “There's a long list of possible solutions, and how we're going to come up with the best one to me is a little difficult.

“We'll need to harness all the brain power in the room,” Tuttle said.

“It's going to be a huge undertaking (and) a very emotional process,” Wiscasset Middle School Principal Linda Bleile said.

“Right now with declining budgets we've probably got to look at things differently,” she said. “And what that' s going to look like, I don't know.”

Bleile thanked the committee for the transparency it has been working with.

“We have to be very open and transparent to the public,” said committee member Richard DeVries, a district board member from Westport Island. “Otherwise, we're going to get skewered,” he said.

In planning the investigation ahead, some committee members said they would like to visit schools outside the district to find out what has and hasn't worked there.

The Wiscasset schools' students and staff can benefit if the committee learns from other people's mistakes, Chelsea Elementary School Principal Andy Doiron said.

It would be particularly helpful to visit schools whose transitions were recent, because people there would be able to talk about the glitches, Wiscasset High School Principal Deb Taylor said.

Susan Johns can be reached at 207-844-4633 or susanjohns@wiscassetnewspaper.com