RAYMOND – Regional School Unit 14 school board members expressed alarm this week with Raymond voters’ recent decision to initiate the school district withdrawal process.

In a 1,324-940 vote on Nov. 4, Raymond voters authorized town officials to send a petition for withdrawal to the RSU 14 Board of Directors and the commissioner of education.

Board member Diana Froisland of Raymond said she was “surprised and disappointed by the results.” Pete Heanssler, a Windham board member, was “surprised by the outcome.” Windham’s Marge Govoni, chairwoman of the board, said she was “extremely disappointed.”

“The board’s pretty unified,” Heanssler said. “I don’t know that there was anybody on the board that was in favor of the vote going the way it did.”

The Nov. 4 vote was the fourth of 22 state-mandated steps required to withdraw from the school district. Now, the Raymond Board of Selectmen will appoint a four-member committee to draw up a withdrawal agreement, which could eventually be put to a final vote at a special town meeting.

To Govoni, the results of the vote indicate that many Raymond residents do not share her feelings about the consolidated district.

“I thought we were doing well as a district,” she said. “Evidently my perception is not shared by a majority of the voters in Raymond, and now we have to move forward. It’s kind of in their lap now. We’ll do what we can to help.”

In Govoni’s view, the process of planning a potential withdrawal – even if a final withdrawal never occurs – has the potential to disrupt the operations of the school district.

“Right now, if you take the transportation, the administrators, central office – we have one set of everything,” Govoni said. “They’re going to have to set up their own administrators and transportation. There’s a lot of work that has to go on. Hopefully, collectively, we’ll do it together. In doing that it’s also taking time that we would spend running the district, so we’re spreading our resources thin.

“I think the impact is going to be pretty large,” Govoni added. “But again, we still want to try to make this as least disruptive to the students and staff as we possibly, possibly can.”

The implications of the vote for the board’s near-term business remains clear. Govoni said the board had not yet met since the election to discuss how to move forward regarding a potential new middle school in Windham. If Raymond withdraws from the district, that could affect the projected size of the potential middle school.

Other board members warned that Raymond taxpayers would see considerable cost increases if the town withdrew from the school district.

According to Froisland, the school portion of the Raymond tax assessment increased roughly $1.6 million during the six-year period prior to consolidation. In the six-year period following consolidation, the Raymond school assessment has increased approximately $450,000, Froisland said.

“The whole reason why I was concerned with the withdrawal is I don’t think people would understand what it would end up costing Raymond to be separate,” she said. “I was concerned about the cost all along, and now the withdrawal committee is going to need to work on budgets and costs. It will be interesting to see where this goes.”

Heanssler said he also expects that a withdrawal would increase Raymond taxpayers’ annual school tax assessment.

“I think they’d feel better having local control,” he said. “I can’t blame them. It’s just a matter of them asking themselves if they’re willing to pay more to have the local control. If they are, then I certainly can’t fault them for that.”

School board members said district residents can expect the withdrawal process to last more than a year, and possibly as long as two years.

Raymond selectmen are now recruiting volunteers to serve on the four-person withdrawal committee and a nine- to 15-person research committee that will study what a withdrawal would entail legally, financially and educationally. The deadline for applications is Dec. 2. On Dec. 9, the school board will appoint volunteers to both committees at its regular meeting.

The four-person withdrawal committee, which is responsible for drafting a withdrawal agreement, will consist of one municipal officer, one member of the group that filed the petition that led to the vote, one member of the general public, and one school board member, according to state rules.

Raymond Selectwoman Teresa Sadak was a lead organizer of the group that filed the petition to initiate the withdrawal process. The school board will appoint one of its members to the committee. The Raymond Board of Selectmen will appoint the other three members.

Mike Reynolds, chairman of the selectmen, said he has consulted with the Department of Education about the withdrawal process. When asked how the board would decide which people to appoint to the committees, Reynolds replied, “No idea.”

Once established, the committee will set out to negotiate the withdrawal agreement with the school board. Then the agreement will be sent to the state commissioner of education for feedback and approval. Once a public hearing is held and a final agreement approved, the commissioner then sets a date for a referendum in Raymond on the final withdrawal agreement.

According to Samantha Warren, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, if a town wishes to halt the withdrawal process, it typically holds a referendum vote.

“The accountability to keep the process moving forward thus comes not by statute, but likely from the citizens of the community,” Warren said. “By way of example, back in June, Buckfield voted via a town referendum to stop the withdrawal process before they completed developing a withdrawal agreement.”

Reynolds said he was taken aback by the lopsided vote.

“I guess I’m not surprised that it went either way,” Reynolds said. “I am surprised at the margin. I thought it would be closer, just based on conversation with folks around town.”

If volunteers are not forthcoming for the research committee, he said, the withdrawal effort is likely to wither.

“If there’s not enough interested citizens to be on the committee and do the work, the whole effort dies on the vine,” Reynolds said. “If this committee can’t be formed, and there’s no progress being made, then it’s up to the selectboard to decide this is going nowhere, and we need to have another vote and stop the process.”

According to Warren, 15 of the 335 Maine towns that have been consolidated into regional school units have successfully withdrawn from their respective districts. Many towns have initiated the withdrawal process and not seen it through.

“In most cases, those towns discovered that many of the core challenges that led to their withdrawal remain even after they’ve separated, and in fact new challenges and costs often emerge,” Warren said.