SALEM -– Last Thursday, members of the MSAD #58 School Board started the dialog to potentially create an Alternative Organizational Structure with MSAD #74.

Kingfield director Kim Jordan made a motion to send a letter to start discussion with the neighboring Somerset County school board. Jordan’s motion, which was seconded by Strong director Ann Schwink, passed unanimously following detailed discussion.

The MSAD #74 school district is made up of students from New Portland, Embden, Solon and Anson. MSAD #74 superintendent Ken Coville was present to participate in MSAD #58’s discussions that evening.

An AOS is similar to a school union in general characteristics and is designed to overcome hurdles that some districts faced when trying to achieve consolidation under Governor John E. Baldacci’s Reorganization Law. An AOS meets the requirements of that law similarly to a Regional School Unit. Once it is developed and adopted by the voters at referendum, the AOS should comply with the law standards and remove any further penalties for both districts. MSAD #58 was penalized $130,000 last year with a loss in state subsidy.

Both MSAD #58 and 74 went through the long process of trying to form RSUs, but voters shot down both plans.

An AOS allows the districts to share functions and realize savings. Unlike an RSU, it allows its member communities to retain their own identities and a large measure of local control. Each member district could maintain its own budget, set it own policies and make decisions such as capital investments and/or school closure at a local level.

“There’s been mention of taking our time in doing this,” said MSAD #58 Superintendent Quenten Clark. “The way to take your time doing this is to start doing it.”

Clark said that if discussions don’t start sometime soon, they’ll be up against a deadline during a time when the board is scrambling to make up for losses in subsidy. Instead he urged his board to start the process now, so the discussion can take place over months or a year and allow local community input.

“This has to be a vision of the people and not just two superintendents,” said Strong director Mike Pond. “Whatever the vision ends up to be.”

Questions such as how many functions need to be shared, labor markets, collective bargaining agreements and other such questions arose that evening. Clark said that the only way to get true answers to these questions is by engaging the two communities in the process. All of the answers will be flushed out during the procedure, he explained.

Coville also spoke of the additional benefits in starting the discussion early. He explained that because the laws were rushed and were not completely thought through, the department of education was answering questions and interpreting the law on a somewhat “case-by-case” basis.

“If we spend the time and look at the issues and say what is the best advantage for our two communities and you write that solution into the plan and give to the commissioner, they are very interested in approving plans,” Coville explained. “You can shape those answers rather then having it shaped for you,” Coville added.

Coville and Clark explained that although an AOS is more structured then an affiliated school union, there is no language of exactly what the structure would need to look like.

Each member district would maintain its own school board. Some AOSs have an additional AOS school board made up of directors from each unit.

Most adopted AOS plans share administrative functions such as the superintendent, business manager, special education director and other functions. The law calls for the AOS to develop “consistency” between the partners in things such as calendars, labor markets and curriculum.

Coville said the word “consistent” does not mean identical and things such as different collective barging agreements can be allowed.

Local school boards can still make local decisions, providing they meet the provisions that are written into the AOS.

If the two boards meet and decide to move forward, they’ll both need to send a Letter of Intent to the DOE commissioner. Clark said that did not bind them to move forward all the way to a vote. The commissioner will likely approve the Letter of Intent and then a group similar to a Regional Planning Committee would form.

After a plan is developed by the boards (or a subcommittee of the boards), it would need to be approved by both school boards and then sent back to the commissioner for approval.

If approved by the commissioner, public hearings will be conducted before it would go before the voters in a referendum.

Coville said that he thought that the MSAD #74 board would likely follow suite and want to talk.

He mentioned that the recent news of sharing Loreen Olsen, MSAD #58 special education director, had created a good feeling for the Anson based board. MSAD #74 was in need of a special education director and now, based on a first-ever agreement between the two boards utilizes Olsen’s service at half cost.