“All Board agendas are posted in advance on our website. Again, if this
does surface as a Board meeting agenda item it will receive lots of
attention and publicity. As I said to you in an earlier email, this type
of decision would certainly cause our Board to solicit the opinion of our
community probably through a community forum solely on the topic.”

So as a follow up e-mail I asked:

“Does this mean that the residents would not have to APPROVE the change? A community forum is information only. Would both towns have a vote?”

Dr. Bearden’s response:

“That’s correct. The Board of Education has the legislative authority to
enter into such an agreement on behalf of the district.”

The guidance staff at the high school stated in a school board meeting that they were already stretched thin. The department will want another staff member. The list goes on. Another custodial person to help clean up after the 140 additional students. Extra buses to get those children to our schools. The wear and tear on our buildings (yes believe it or not extra people in a building do cause additional work — look at when you have kids at home versus not!?).

As well, when you take on another school being Kittery or Rollinsford you have to take everyone.

So, to answer a previous comment… Would we have more teachers (No) the answer should be yes!

Tuitioning students, if it makes economiuc sense when fairly evaluated, may be an appropriate way of lowering local costs for “fixed assets”, be they buildings or people. I hope they do look at it.

Please read the article again. It states the following in the article:

“In the end, it was agreed that issues such as potential shared transportation, central office staffing, facilities and some discussion of tuitioning high school students in the future would come up moving forward.”

As well, I e-mailed Dr. Bearden and he reiterated this sentiment.

Previous to the meeting I had e-mailed Dr. Bearden asking him if during this meeting they were going to be talking of this as I was told that was on Kittery’s Agenda per one of their School Board Member.

This is what Dr. Bearden wrote to me:
“MSAD 35 does not allow tuition students at this point.

Having said that, our Board of Directors will be meeting with the Kittery
School Committee on Tuesday, June 16th at 6pm in Kittery to discuss if
there are other ways we might be able to work together in the future in
order to be even more efficient. Currently, we do some bulk bidding on
certain items and try to coordinate some of our professional development
activities. I’m not sure what will surface in that discussion but it
should be an interesting, and hopefully productive, conversation.”

We will be forming a committee that will most likely consist of 2 board members and the superintendents of both school districts. The purpose of the committee will be to explore various ways that the districts’ can derive benefits from each other and hopefully cut costs while also delivering quality education.

Quoting:

“The two school committees from Kittery and School Administrative District 35 met Tuesday night, hoping to find ways to share programs and cut costs through collaboration.”

http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090617/NEWS/906170366&emailAFriend=1