The past several months have produced little progress on negotiating an agreement to create a Freeport Community School District. The road forward has been blocked by the repeated demand that an independent Freeport High School be required to act as the “school of guaranteed acceptance” for all of the students in Pownal and Durham.

Whether this is an attempt to somehow punish Freeporters for trying to fix a bad situation or a strategy to scuttle the withdrawal discussion entirely is not clear. If Freeport High School makes this guarantee, it creates an otherwise unnecessary $10 million expansion obligation on Freeport taxpayers that may be only partially offset by the other towns. This financial uncertainty would be an anchor weighing the town down as we try to move forward with community schools.

The good news is that we have another chance to try to move this negotiation forward. The two parties are scheduled to meet again this Thursday afternoon with a professional mediator to try to break through this blockade. The Freeport Withdrawal Committee is prepared to discuss specifics of a reasonable compromise on this issue. We hope the Pownal and Durham working group is ready for that, as well.

In contrast with RSU 5, the Freeport Withdrawal Committee has organized itself around a simple core value: We have a responsibility to educate every child who attends Freeport community schools to the best of our abilities (no matter where they are from). Some specifics that arise from this include:

• Grandfathering: The Withdrawal Committee has committed to educate every student from Pownal and Durham currently attending Freeport schools for the rest of their middle and high school education. This ensures continuity of programming and social circles for the students.

• Flexibility: The Freeport Community School District will need to be able to adapt and change as the nature of public education is in flux. Long-term contracts must preserve the ability of future school boards to respond to changing circumstances.

• Planning: In order to properly plan and develop programming and staffing, the Freeport Community School District must have sufficient visibility and commitment from tuitioning towns.

• Budget: Education costs real money. Any tuition must be adequate to cover the true cost of educating the kids being sent. Because Freeport High School is being asked to accommodate a large proportion of tuition students, “marginal economics” do not apply.

• Capacity: Freeport cannot afford a forced expansion of the high school to meet the terms of this agreement while providing an excellent high school experience.

• Excellence: We need to focus on attracting and retaining students in Freeport schools, not worrying about losing them to charters and tuition to neighboring districts.

Whatever the parties settle on, this agreement will define a minimum commitment from Freeport to the towns of Pownal and Durham. Future Freeport school boards will be able to offer opportunities above and beyond this baseline with the benefit of up-to-date information. These communities have a lot of history between them. This agreement can lay the foundation for a future of mutually-agreed-upon cooperation, rather than forced consolidation dictated by a flawed law.

To be clear, these negotiations are not locking Freeport into anything. Our goal is to give Freeport a chance to weigh the facts and have a clear choice to vote on in November – returning to Freeport Community Schools or remaining within the RSU for the next 20 years.

Members of the Freeport Withdrawal Committee are Richard DeGrandpre, Dennis King, Peter Murray and N. Kate Werner.