BIDDEFORD — State Senators Nancy Sullivan, D-Biddeford, and Lois Snowe-Mello, R-Poland, are protesting a decision by Department of Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen to rescind grants that would help pay for summer school and after-school programs in the communities they represent.
“The children in our districts desperately need this academic programming, and we are fearful what a summer without academic enrichment will mean to the hundreds of students we represent,” stated Sullivan and Snowe-Mello in a letter to the commissioner dated May 23.
They asked Bowen to reconsider his decision, announced in a May 18 email, to withdraw the 21st Century Community Learning Center grants, worth $2.5 million combined to Biddeford and Auburn (Snowe-Mello represents Auburn) serving approximately 1,000 students over the next five years. Portland and Fryeburg were also awarded grants.
Biddeford’s share was to be about $287,000 the first year and a total of $1.2 million over the five-year length of the grant.
Without these funds, there will be no summer school this year for grades 1-5, said Biddeford Superintendent of Schools Sarah-Jane Poli.
It is unclear what the effect will be on after-school programs in the fall, she said.
Poli said she wrote to Bowen expressing her displeasure that the grants were rescinded, as did Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jeff Porter.
“I am not overstating my observation that the credibility of the Maine Department of Education has been tarnished in my mind,” said Porter. “The DOE’s decision is unprecedented and highly irregular.”
As well, the decision to withhold the grant money simply isn’t allowed, said Sullivan and Snowe-Mello in their letter.
“We have not seen where, in state law, a commissioner has the authority to repeal a ”˜final’ award after it has been made,” they wrote.
“State guidelines for overturning a decision,” according to Sullivan and Snowe-Mello, “state that in order to overturn an award, there must have been a ”˜violation of law,’ the award must have been ”˜arbitrary or capricious,’ or there had to have been ”˜irregularities creating fundamental unfairness.’”
None of these reasons were given as to why the grants were rescinded, they stated.
In addition, wrote the senators, the decision was made “behind closed doors.”
The awards were rescinded after an applicant that was not awarded funds appealed the decision.
After reviewing the request for proposals that sought applications for the grant, a determination was made that the RFP was “flawed,” said DOE spokesman David Connerty-Marin.
Once that determination was made, it is required that the grants be withdrawn, he said, and a new RFP issued.
Normally, when an applicant appeals a decision, there is an appeal process involving a hearing. The normal appeal process wasn’t sufficient in this case, said Connerty-Marin, because the flawed language made the RFP “invalid.” Different language could have affected who would have applied for the grant.
Although priority points in the scoring of the grant were to go to Title I schools, which are schools with a particular amount of low-income students, but that was not clearly stated in the RFP, said Connerty-Marin.
This is the first time this fund was targeted to Title I schools, according an undated document from the DOE responding to questions raised about the decision to rescind the grants.
But some feel that’s not the case, including Ethan Strimling, CEO of Learning Works. According to a 2009 RFP for the same funding pool, he stated in an email, “It says priority points will be awarded to applicants serving ”˜designated Title I priority schools.’”
Learning Works, based in Portland with a center in Biddeford, has helped Portland apply successfully in the past for the 21st Century Community Learning Center grants. This year, it assisted both Portland and Biddeford with successful grant applications.
According to the DOE document, the problem with the RFP occurred “when something got dropped as a result (of) staff turnover on this program.”
Instead of reissuing a new RFP for the existing pool of money, the DOE will issue a new one when additional money, approximately $1 million, becomes available on July 1.
Whether or not Title I schools will be prioritized has yet to be decided, according to Connerty-Marin.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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