BRUNSWICK

School Board members Wednesday approved spending $1,200 to complete Department of Homeland Security background checks and applications that would make Brunswick suitable for future student cultural exchange programs with China.

However, the board balked at approving $4,000 to $5,000 to send Assistant Superintendent Greg Bartlett on a goodwill visit to Shanghai until it could further discuss the necessity and benefits of the trip.

If approved, the trip would be a bookend gesture to the Chinese school district that sent 21 students and teachers to Brunswick in July, as part of a sister-school agreement the town has forged with Jinhua No. 1 High School in the Zheijang province.

Bartlett’s eastern odyssey was suggested by a Portland-based consultant the district hired to help it develop the cultural exchange program. But the expense of the trip, as well as its relative suddenness — consultant Suzanne Fox told Superintendent Paul Perzanoski of the trip only two weeks ago — caught board members by surprise.

They voted 7-1, with Chairman Jim Grant in opposition, to table the issue for discussion during a Sept. 25 workshop, with a decision expected during the Oct. 9 regular meeting.

If approved, Bartlett would depart during the first week of November.

The Chinese students — the first of which could arrive in fall 2014 — also would bring a financial gain to the district, which could charge tuition fees of thousands of dollars per student, per year. To become eligible, however, the district first has to become certified by the federal government. The application process includes a site visit from Homeland Security, background checks, and other security checks.

While some balked at the initial expense, board member William Thompson described $1,200 as a necessary preliminary cost that would yield far higher returns.

“Whether we spend $1,200 now or next year, it’s a fixed price that’s not going to change, so we might as well do it now,” Thompson said. “I wouldn’t want to see a program that is suddenly starting to take off, only to be limited because we hadn’t gone through that particular process.”

Grant, the board’s chairman, concurred.

“The initial response is that we weren’t going to send anyone, but I thought that it showed poorly on Brunswick to not send anyone to the reciprocating school when they have sent someone here,” Grant said.

“I’m recommending it,” he added. “I think for $4,000 we can buy some good will and do some recruiting … I think it is politic, as well as professional, for us to support what we’ve already started.”

Educational standards

Also Wednesday, board members discussed the continuing implementation of Common Core educational standards, adopted in Maine in 2010 and scheduled for full integration at the outset of the 2014-15 school year.

Using content areas and action-based, interpretive learning to replace traditional models of instruction and testing, Common Core curriculum is designed to increase students’ depth of knowledge.

The goal is learning in greater depth, but across a narrower field of study, according to Administrative Consultant Cheryl White.

Common Core practices are state-driven, not federal: Forty-four states have endorsed the curriculum, which stresses critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity.

“It does less, but does it better,” explained Bartlett, the assistant superintendent. “The (traditional) American curriculum is very broad and wide, but not a lot of depth. Common Core is saying that you don’t have to learn all that stuff, but what you do learn conceptually, you need to learn in greater depth.”

jtleonard@timesrecord.com