High school choice will be likely be left up to residents in Raymond, where the School Board agreed last week to send the issue to a town vote after hearing from citizens at its June 5 meeting.

Voters will likely be asked whether to continue the tradition of school choice, an issue being re-examined in light of rising budgets and consolidation talks with the Windham School Department.

As consolidation looms on the horizon, the school choice policy in Raymond has been a source of disagreement with the Windham School Department, which hopes to partner with the Raymond School Department and reap the financial benefits that come with more students.

Opinions vary on the impact of removing Raymond’s historic right to school choice, but two town officials said consolidation will likely push students toward Windham High School regardless of the outcome on school choice.

If consolidation with Windham is successful, said Selectman Mark Gendron, “I don’t think you are going to see people going to Gray or Poland.”

Until recently, Raymond paid full tuition for students to go to the high school of their choice. At the May 28 town meeting, residents voted to cap the tuition rate paid by the town to the amount charged by Windham High School, where 160 of the 270 Raymond high school students attend classes. Last year’s tuition rate at Windham was around $7,300.

Due to the decision, any amount incurred by a student above that rate would have to covered by the student’s parents. As a result of the change, around $40,000 was saved in the Raymond budget.

The Windham School Department stands to gain around $1.5 million from consolidation with Raymond schools as students are added to enrollment and Raymond takes on a portion of Windham’s school related debt, said Gendron.

Regardless of the outcome on school choice, students will most likely end up at Windham, Selectman Joe Bruno said.

“We’ve always had school choice, and our kids have always gone to Windham,” he said.

The remainder of Raymond’s high school students attend Gray-New Gloucester, Westbrook, North Yarmouth Academy and other local schools. Raymond currently has contracts with Windham through 2013 and Westbrook and Gray-New Gloucester through July 1 that allow Raymond students to attend those high schools.

Other school departments, like Poland, allow Raymond students to attend without a contract. Transportation is provided free of charge by Windham, Westbrook, Gray-New Gloucester and Poland high schools; students must provide their own transportation to other schools.

If school choice were to be discontinued, students attending high schools other than Windham would be allowed to continue attending those schools with the town of Raymond paying the Windham tuition rate, Sadak said. After four or five years, those “grandfathered” students would be phased out by graduation, she said.

“We don’t want them to be disrupted at all,” Sadak said.

At the same time the school board was considering the tuition rate cap, it was looking at the school choice issue and the expiring Westbrook and Gray-New Gloucester contracts, both as way to cut the budget and as a way to ease consolidation with Windham, where students do not have school choice.

The school choice question was supposed to be on the ballot Tuesday, but the school board thought the language was confusing and wanted more discussion on the issue. Board members removed it from the ballot at their final meeting in May, said School Board Chairwoman Teresa Sadak.

The School Board then voted June 5 to ask selectmen to place the school choice issue in front of voters at a future referendum. At the meeting, Sadak said, the board heard residents loud and clear.

“They want a ballot vote,” she said. “We even had a gentleman stand up and say he’d pay the $500 it costs for the referendum.”

Selectmen will now decide whether to place the issue on a referendum ballot or hold a special town meeting. They will likely discuss the matter at their next meeting, scheduled for July 15.

Bruno said he prefers a referendum, which draws more people than a town meeting. The vote should be held after summer, when it is difficult to get people to the polls for a special vote, he said.

Gendron said neither a special referendum nor town meeting would draw anyone except those specifically concerned with school choice. It would not be truly representative of the town’s wishes, he said.

“If it was on (the June 10) ballot, when people are voting for so many different things, that’s one thing,” Gendron said.

The question of school choice was raised as a way to control costs before the tuition cap was successful. But with the tuition rate now capped, Bruno said school choice is no longer a budget issue, as it is going to cost the town the same regardless of where students attend high school.

But, he said, Raymond students have historically had school choice, and it may be something they are not willing to change.

Sadak said it is an important issue to a lot of residents, and the school choice debate has brought many people before the board to argue the issue. “School choice has always been in Raymond,” she said.

The town is pretty split on the issue, Sadak said, and people on both sides feel strongly about their position.

“I’m really glad I’m not making the vote,” she said. “For five of us (on the school board) to make the decision for the whole town would be hard.”

When the contract was initially signed with the Windham School Department, it was difficult persuading half of Raymond high school students to go to their neighboring school, Gendron said. Now, 60 percent of Raymond’s high schoolers go to Windham, and according to a school survey 48 of the 61 current eighth-graders are planning to attend Windham.

Those numbers will likely grow when Raymond and Windham consolidate into one school unit, something that will probably come to a vote this fall, Gendron said.

“You are not going to be tuitioned,” said Gendron. “You will be going to your own high school.”

So when looking at the school issue, Gendron is more concerned with the savings that can be obtained through consolidation than with the pros and cons of school choice.

“This choice issue, it’s a minor thing,” he said. “The important issue is consolidation. We can cut down on administration. We can cut down on transportation and busing. There are so many advantages to Raymond.”