As a long-time Freeport resident and father of three young children, I would like to voice my support for dissolving the Regional School Unit model and returning tri-town area schools back to local control.

Consolidation: Flawed from the start

As many of us recall, back in 2008 the state pushed for school consolidation as a way for districts to share services and cut costs – essentially pushing the theory that bigger is better. To “convince” the public that the consolidation theory would work in practice, the state rolled out a mix of penalties, rewards, declining student enrollment studies, and high school capacity projections – all of which turned out to be illusions. Towns that wisely resisted consolidation were never penalized with hefty fines; rewards to the “good” towns that did succumb to state pressure never materialized; student enrollment projections used by the Ssate were badly off, and, incredibly, a math error by state “experts” made Freeport High School larger on paper than it was in reality.

To their credit, the RSU board and Superintendent Welsh have struggled mightily to overcome this ugly early history and forge a partnership among our three towns – but it is not going well. None of the three towns in this forced marriage feel like they are getting what they want. Durham and Pownal feel they are being asked to support budgets and bonds they don’t favor, and many Freeport families – particularly those of us with young children in Morse Street School – are seeing an acute loss of regular instruction resources.

Tri-Town politics: Trouble ahead

And if we slog on as an RSU, things are likely to get uglier and more tense between our three communities. In the coming years, Durham and Pownal will continue to be under intense pressure from the state to bring its property valuations up closer to market value, as is required by law. This will mean fewer state dollars flowing into those communities to help pay for school budgets. In this environment, even if RSU 5 were to hold its budgets flat, Durham and Pownal taxpayers are looking at increased property taxes for the foreseeable future to make up for the lack of state funds.

Couple this reality with the fact that many Freeport families are getting tired of watered-down school budgets and you have a recipe for conflict. Freeport families will be fighting to restore cuts to lower grade-level schools and pushing for resources that make RSU schools attractive and competitive to those families who might otherwise choose private options – as they did in droves when I went through Freeport schools in the 1980s.

This is not a healthy environment for tri-town residents and I struggle to understand why we would choose to go down this path when a better alternative lies within our grasp.

Post-RSU 5: A brighter future

Before consolidation, Durham, Freeport and Pownal had wonderful, cooperative relationships with one another. We were good neighbors. We shared services; we found efficiencies within an educational model that was far more flexible and accommodating to local conditions. And most of all, we had mutual respect for one another – a commodity that no amount of cost-savings can buy.

I am confident that in a post-RSU world, we can win back those days – win back local control and win back the trust and respect that has been, and will continue to be, shattered by the misplaced notion that bigger is better.

Eric Horne

Freeport