Maine Education Commissioner Stephen Bowen’s practice of allowing students to transfer from one school district to another without a change of residence is drawing opposition from school superintendents around the state.
Some superintendents say the easy transfers are destroying local control and could add significant costs to school systems. The spokesman for the state Department of Education disputes those claims and said the matter boils down to acting in the best interest of the students.
At issue is what are referred to as superintendent agreements.
Under state law, the superintendent of the school district where the student lives and the superintendent of the district the student wants to attend may approve a transfer if they find it is in the student’s best interest. The law allows parents to appeal to the education commissioner if the transfer is denied.
The commissioner’s decision is final and binding, according to Maine law.
Appeals seldom were granted under previous commissioners, according to superintendents interviewed Tuesday. But that has changed dramatically in the past two years.
For the 2011-2012 school year, there were 27 appeals filed with the commissioner by parents who had their transfer requests rejected by their superintendents, according to Maine Department of Education communications director David Connerty-Marin. Of those 27, the commissioner overruled the local superintendents 16 times and upheld the local decisions the other 11 times.
For 2012-2013, there have been 68 appeals filed already, Connerty-Marin said. Bowen has overruled local superintendents 50 times and granted the transfers. Only three appeals have been rejected while another 15 appeals still are under consideration.
There are 1,500 superintendent agreements approved across the state.
Connerty-Marin acknowledged that there has been a change in philosophy from past commissioners on whether to grant transfers at the state level.
“He [Commissioner Stephen Bowen] believes that the parents have their children’s best interest in mind and that is his starting point now,” Connerty-Marin said.
He said before the onus to prove that the transfer was in the best interest of the child was with the parents. Now the commissioner has put the onus on the district to show that a transfer would not be in the best interest of the student.
Sharp criticism
The change at the commissioner’s level has come under sharp criticism from superintendents.
Regional School Unit 13 Superintendent Lew Collins said his main concern is the loss of local control.
“Maine has been a leader in local control of education. This removes local control,” Collins said.
RSU 13 — which consists of Rockland, Thomaston, St. George, Owls Head, South Thomaston and Cushing — has 15 superintendent agreements. Nine are people moving into the district and six moving out.
The commissioner has overruled one rejected superintendent’s agreement that involves a student who wanted to attend another district.
Collins sent a letter to RSU 13 board members in which he criticized the new policy.
“This new ‘activism’ on the part of the state, if true, will effectively remove all local control from decisions about residency. So, if the parents of a child with extraordinary special needs costing another district $100,000 per year wants to attend RSU 13, the commissioner can, in effect, stick us with the bill for a child that does not reside within our boundaries,” Collins told the board in his letter dated Friday.
Paul Stearns, president of the Maine School Superintendents Association and superintendent of SAD 4 — which consists of Abbott, Cambridge, Parkman, Sangerville and Wellington — echoed the concerns voiced by Collins.
He said the intent of state education laws is for students to attend schools in the communities where they live. He said it is not fair for one district to have to pick up the costs of educating a student from another district for any reason.
“This will create real chaos,” Stearns said.
SAD 40 Superintendent Susan Pratt said there have been three instances in her district this year in which the commissioner has overruled rejected transfer requests. She said in her previous 10 years in central office administration for schools, she can recall only one time when a rejection has been overruled by the state.
SAD 40 consists of Waldoboro, Union, Warren, Washington and Friendship.
Elaine Nutter, superintendent of the Five-Town Community School District which includes Camden, Rockport, Hope, Appleton and Lincolnville, said there has been one rejected transfer to Camden Hills Regional High School overruled by the commissioner this year. The district has 13 approved transfers, with nine coming to Camden Hills from other districts and four attending other districts.
Nutter said it is a financial problem when the commissioner overrules since the Five-Town CSD does not receive state aid, except for reimbursement of debt. When a student from another district comes to her district, local taxpayers are paying the costs.
Stearns said while there have been 68 appeals thus far this year, it likely would increase when parents become aware of the ability to transfer for any reason.
He said, for example, when one district builds a new school, there may be parents in adjoining districts who want their children to go there. The neighboring districts will suffer a loss of students and revenues simply because they have an older school, the association president argued.
Stearns said superintendents act reasonably when there are requests. He said, for example, there was a student whose father and grandfather had taken Reserve Officers Training Corps classes and the student wanted to transfer in his senior year to a school that offered ROTC. He said that was an easy call which he approved.
Connerty-Marin disputed the financial impact on the new policy. He said districts that receive special education students will be reimbursed for that education by the state. The Education Department spokesman also said that the transfer of a student does not dramatically increase the cost to a school system.
“You won’t have to hire another teacher for one student. You won’t have to hire another principal or bus driver. You won’t have to keep the lights on longer,” Connerty-Marin said.
The education spokesman said this should not be disruptive to schools. He said the vast majority of students go to school where they live.
There were about 189,000 public school students in Maine last year, according to the department’s website.
Connerty-Marin said that requests for transfers that may have been sought because it was more convenient for child care purposes based on where a parent worked had not been considered legitimate reasons for approval by superintendents. But the commissioner feels differently. He said if a transfer allows the parent to stay employed at a job, that should be encouraged.
Stearns said, however, he has emailed his local legislators to voice his concerns.
State Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, who serves on the Legislature’s Education Committee, said while it is within the legal right of the commissioner to overrule local school districts, he disagrees with the commissioner’s approach. He said the commissioner repeatedly said during meetings across the state that he would respect the education field.
“He is not respecting the field. He is saying he doesn’t care what they think,” Alfond said.
Rep. David Richardson, R-Carmel, who is the House chairman of the Legislature’s Education Committee, said he was not aware of the change by the commissioner but said he would be checking into it when the committee meets Wednesday to consider gubernatorial appointments.
Why are there still so many Superintendents in this State? We could easily lose half of them without seeing any impact on Students.
Florida has one school district per county. They have thousands of students in schools and tens of thousands in districts. They are at least a year ahead of Maine in education through 7th grade (my own experience anyway). That would be wonderful if we could cut the expense of education through cutting the fat cats at the top of the district food chains….
So they are saying that someone wanting to transfer for ROTC is a good reason but a child with special needs that could be BETTER educated elsewhere is not??? Can you say screwed up. I think as long as it IS a good reason then why not allow the transfer.
but what is a “good reason?” If a parent wants their child to have ROTC, but their local school does not have it (and the parent is so passionate about their child having that program) then move to the town with the high school that offers it. If a child can go to a school simply because they offer a course that child wants, where does it end? Oh, my child wants Chinese (at least for now), but Old Town doesn’t offer it, I guess I will just have a fit and get my child to Bangor High School (you know, where Bangor taxpayers send their kids) so he/she can take Chinese. OH, and then when that happens, what happens when 2 weeks into the school year, the kid drops Chinese? The kid is already there. Who has time to monitor stuff like that to then say “you aren’t taking Chinese any more, back to Old Town you go.”….then mommy and daddy whine some more about how a move 2 weeks into the school year would “disrupt my child’s education.”
I would also say if somebody has a special needs child who they believe would be better educated elsewhere, move to that town and get the services from that town’s schools. If a person is so concerned about the education their child is receiving in town X, then move to town Y. I don’t want to hear the “well it isn’t that simple, some people can’t afford to move, etc.” That is fine, but that doesn’t/SHOULD NOT mean that you get the benefits of the higher taxed town’s schools even though you can’t move there. If we all get the benefits of somebody else’s high taxes, then why bother paying the high taxes at all (come to think of it, this stance by the commissioner sounds very LIBERAL to me, now that I think of it).
I want a Mercedes but can only afford a Volkswagen. Gee, I guess somebody else subsidizes my Mercedes since it isn’t fair that I don’t have one.
It is a GAME played by parents, and the commissioner is complicit in them. The losers are the school districts. I work in schools and have seen the “reasons” why parents (using the term loosely for most of these situations) want their child in another school. It is usually because the kid has been such an obnoxious kid in their current school the parents have decided that the kid “just needs a fresh start” so send him to somebody else’s school to deal with….it happens every day.
Since you work in the school system, you should know that the money eventually follows the child to the new school. It also explains why you are so against swaps.
The state money follows the child. If YOU pay taxes in town A, WHY should your child be allowed to go to school in town B? Whether I work in schools or not is NOT why I am against this notion of getting something that somebody else is paying for. This is a philosophical question, and my philosophy is this: if you want your child in town A’s school, you move to that town (or a town that sends kids to that town). That is pretty reasonable and fair (yes, I said fair). If you can’t afford to live in town A, you don’t get to send your children to town A’s schools. This is how the WORLD typically works until the recipient class mentality takes over and everybody gets whatever they want……as long as somebody else is footing the bill.
The commissioner is clearly doing this (which still, philosophically to me seems like a very liberal notion) to squeeze teachers (as he apparently hates them) when, in fact, they cannot perform miracles with all kids (the kids who get to stay home all day as their “parents” let them do so, kids who will not do homework, won’t study for tests, etc)….yep, the teachers are the ones who must be slammed in the paper, no mention of the horrific excuses for parents. The commissioner is grossly abusing his power in this instance.
Another example of LePage/Bowen “Small government”. Looks like votes of no confidence.
Now it’s Every School District Left Behind?
The government is no longer telling people where they HAVE to send their children…I’m praying school choice goes through so that everyone can chose where their children attend school and it isn’t based on your street address or town.
The legislature nixed the iniative of “school choice” but this hack of an Education Commisioner is doing it anyway at his own discretion. It is typical of this administration to do its own thing regardless of what the other branch of government has decided. So what if they weren’t successful at making it the law, they’ll do it anyway. This kind of horse pucky has gone on too long. Put a stop to it at the polls in November.
The education commissioner has ALWAYS had that power to do it, Moose. You are just mad that this particular commissioner is indeed exercising that power.
Yes, the Commissioner of Education has always had that power. But none of Bowen’s predecessors has used it as liberally as he has. He is using it to weaken the, perhaps, already weak school systems even more to accomplish the Tea Party goal of undermining public education. The legislature said NO to “school choice.” The Tea Party hack just doesn’t listen or, more likely, doesn’t care. He was picked by LePage not because of his educational savvy, but because he was a good Tea Party lieutenant.
I just had to use “Bowen” and “liberal” in the same sentence for the irony.
I was at the education commission hearing where school choice was discussed. They did not say NO they said they wanted another year to gather more information. They will be taking it up again during the next session.
School choice is important. Schools should have to compete. Schools that continually score poorly on the state tests should be worried. They need to fix the issues and make sure that they are providing more then an adequate education.
Two of my children were swapped this year to a district 7 miles away. I transport my children, they are not receiving special ed. Why should they have to stay in a school that allows bullying and has been on a CIPS plan for years? The administration gets out of offering school choice (as the no child left behind says they need to) because there is no other middle school in the district. It is about time an Education Commissioner is doing what is right for the students and not for the school boards/budgets.
The public school system’s biggest fear – competition.
If the playing field isn’t level, then there’s not much competition.
Take the case of a small rural elementary school in a relatively poor community. Fifteen miles away is a bigger school in a bigger town that is financially better off. Which students in the small town might find themselves enrolling in the bigger school that is 15 miles away? It’s easy to see that those students would tend to come from families that were better off financially (and can therefore afford transportation costs) and that are better educated (and therefore know how to use the system). Sure, that’s great for the more privileged kid and his parents, but the small school now has $8,000.00 less to play with but their costs haven’t gone down any, and — most importantly — they have lost a set of parents who could have been important allies in improving their school.
Especially in rural Maine, the system works best when communities are fully committed to their schools. The alternative is a two-tier education system that might result in better book-learning for some but will actually set our state backward in long run.
Many smaller schools get students from neighboring larger communities as well. Works both ways.
I’m far from wealthy, a single parent and I manage to transport my children to the next town to school. It is what is best for them.
So I can only assume since you are all about what is best for your kids that you would have moved to that town if the commissioner had not given your kids a free ride at the other town’s expense (which is exactly what he did, but getting subsidized but that town’s taxpayers apparently doesn’t bother you).
As for your other comment, a good education starts at home. CIPS schools are typically in lower income areas. Do you think those schools are naturally just worse or could it just be, in so many cases, the parents of the kids in those districts are not so engaged in education (nor do many of them value it so they do not instill that same value in their children?).
Do you think, for example, that Cape Elizabeth must have better teachers than, say, Bucksport (just picking another town) because Cape Elizabeth’s test scores are higher? I would bet the biggest determinant in a student’s school success is the family/home environment and how that supports and encourages their child to value education.
I would move if I didn’t own my home (and am still paying on it). I can’t sell it so I am stuck, at this point, right where I am.
I don’t know about other schools but the one in the community I live in has a lot of active parents, going to open house at school, going to games, going to reading night and being involved with in the school community. The teachers at the middle school are split right down the middle as far as good and bad. I am thankful that they (the legislature) passed the effective teacher law this year. I am not willing to wait around to see if they actually get rid of (or re-train) the teachers that, according to test scores, continually don’t do their job. Funny how one year all the kids make AYP or increase their scores and the next they are losing points and going backwards in math for example. The school is on CIPS for math, the next year they increase math scores and decrease on the reading side. They can’t seem to walk and chew gum at the same time. Now they are on CIPS for Math and attendance. Kids are being bullied by students and teachers. The environment is not conducive to learning and I along with many other parents got superintendent swaps this year because of it.
It is frustrating as a parent to sit at school board meetings for the last 2 years and not once hear a word about the students, about changing curriculum, it’s all about the politics and trying to put an addition on the school. I suggested they put their money into curriculum or training for their teachers…but that isn’t as nice as a new 2 million dollar addition on a school that has declining enrollment year after year.
The public’s biggest fear is also private schools that will benefit the rich and their offspring at the cost of hard working democrats and a few confused republicans.
You do realize that this has ZERO to do with competition, right?
Simplistic low information TP response.
What Bowen is doing is nothing less than sponsoring, thru his office personally, SCHOOL CHOICE and the creation of a State-sanctioned Charter School system and telling the various local School Board’s that regardless of whatever they do, HE’S the one that is going to have the final say. So much for the GOP and TP idea of smaller and more local government. Nice to have them out of the closet for all to see. I just wnder how he’s goig to describe it. 1st we get the No Child Left Behind Act and now Bowen gives us the We’ll Decide who Get’s Left Behind Act. Isin’t Maine great ?
Nice try but it doesn’t exactly take a big bureaucracy to simply allow parents to choose the most convenient and best school for their child. Why are you so afraid of allowing them this choice?
Convenience and best school are not one and the same. Ask anyone looking for a job about that when distance, transportation and family are factored in. How many kid’s from say, Howland and Enfield, that show the aptitude for mechanical skills are able to go to Baxter’s new school ? No, Bowen’s using the Superintendent’s as a means of manipulating school choice is just more of his segregating the school’s thru his office. Sooner or later it’s going to be seen for what it is. The real question is who’s going to see it, and do something about it, first, the parent’s, the community as a whole or the Court’s when a parent finally realizes just what Bowen’s doing on behalf of the MHPC, ALEC and the local John Birch society’s ‘educational advancement’ committee and using his office to keep their kid’s from getting the best education possible in their school. Mainer’s now have the State Dept of Education out of the closet and their political agenda exposed for all to see. And isin’t interesting that no where in this is Paulie mentioned ? Maybe he’s studying for his next try at the SAT. One can but hope !
I don’t understand why any public school superintendent should have the right to refuse any student who wants to attend his schools, and the same goes for preventing a student from leaving. Sounds like superintendents need to get over themselves and focus on providing a good education for any student who chooses to attend school in his district.
Oh please. You are, in effect, saying, “I don’t care where you pay your property taxes, if you want to go to the shiny new school, you can.”
If you want your child to go to X public high school then MOVE to that town. If I pay taxes in Bangor, my 2nd grader would go to Bangor schools. If I move to Orono, then my child would then transfer to Orono. There would be no “but please Mr. or Mrs. Superintendent, my child has friends in the Bangor schools and wants to stay there.”…..then you should have stayed in Bangor.
Actions have consequences, and if you move, your child may have to change schools. The fact that the commissioner is overriding these agreements at such an alarming rate is outrageous. It is just part of his “all kids should have school choice” agenda. In many other states, there is no school choice. I wonder how taxpayers in more expensive towns would like their tax dollars going to subsidize the education of kids who are not in their town. If you pay taxes in Bangor/Hampden/Cape Elizabeth, your money should go toward educating children in THOSE towns…..not the child who SHOULD be going to another school in another district.
…and this “the best interest of the child” line is a farce. The commissioner does not know what is in the best interest of the child. It is interesting that these parents of the year are so concerned about where their child goes to school yet THEY moved to another district, now they want their cake and eat it too……pathetic all around.
Maybe the parent can’t afford to move to Cape Elizabeth or wherever the shiny new school is located, but wants his kid to have all the same advantages as the rich kids have.
Superintendents know what is best for their fiefdoms, parents know what is in their kids best interest, the ultimate “local control.”
Local money doesn’t pay for the majority of “shiny new schools.”. State money pays for it. So why should locals be able to deny any Maine kid who wants to go there? Do you care more about “the system” or the kid who wants to go to the best possible school? What does his patents residency have to do with it?
and shiny new schools must be better? Most of local tax money goes to support THAT town’s educational system. IF you want the perceived as better education, move. Some people can’t move, and some can’t afford 400k homes, etc. Where does it end? We all have limits to what we can afford. If you can afford to live in a town with a perceived better school system then you can live there. If you cannot, then you work with your local school (which could be just as good if not better for your child).
You want the benefits of SOMEBODY else’s money. I know who you will be voting for in November.
My town (Hampden) already got all of your tax money to build the shiniest, newest school in the whole state, so as long as there’s room, why shouldn’t any taxpayer who paid for it be able to send their kid there? They are PUBLIC schools to serve the PUBLIC, not school administrators.
Yeah, tell the people of SAD#22 (who will be paying millions more than what the state provided) that they should simply let anybody go there. This is not about school administrators either. I see it as superintendents in a position to protect the financial situation in their town/city. A huge percentage of Hampden taxes go to pay the teachers at Hampden schools (just like Bangor’s taxes, etc pay Bangor teachers). For the life of me I cannot understand the rationale that well, I want my kids at the new school, who cares if I don’t live there (or will not pay Hampden taxes), I want I want I want, and you and you and you can pay….yep, seems fair to me.
Oh, and please I really hope you don’t equate new school with better teaching. Only a fool would do that.
You were the one who introduced the term “shiny new school” into the conversation, as if that was something important or desirable. Obviously there’s more to it than that. The point is that to some people that is important, while to others, higher test scores or better record of students being admitted to good colleges, or proximity to the parents job or available transportation or a strong math or science program is key. The parent is in the best position to weigh all these considerations and their decision should be supported whenever possible.
These few students who choose to do this are not an un bearable burden on the town with the more desirable school and while I don’t claim to speak for all Hampden taxpayers, I am one, so please don’t presume to tell me what “they” want. My understanding is that when a student transfers, the new school is reimbursed by the state. Is this not correct? So as long as additional staff don’t have to be hired it seems like more of a financial windfall than a burden.
Try to be a little less parochial and keep in mind that the administrators are there to serve the students and taxpayers, NOT vice versa, and you’ll soon start coming to more rational conclusions on this issue.
It’s the idea that you have some control over the schools that you pay taxes for locally. If Maine wants to move to a completely state run system (Big Gummint) then do so and the money follow each kid wherever they go but…………….but don’t tell me you want my local property tax dollars to pay for someone else’s kid- sorry, that’s not choice, that’s stealing!
the money follows the child. My child attends school in a neighboring town on a swap. She is included in the student count by the state and the town, since it is a receiving town from the state, will get paid for my child in the form of the state subsidy.
Dream on- the “money” that follows the child is less than half and usually much, much less than half of the tuition cost- for minimum district receivers like Camden they get no money………..the local property tax dollar pays for 50-90% of the actual costs per kid so what you’re saying is that it’s OK for me to subsidize your child? You can’t get more Socialist than that and coming from this Commissioner that’s truly ironic!
There must be a reason a students wants to transfer. I don’t think they just wake up one morning and say “I think I’ll change schools”. This should be left up to the student and their parents. Not some superintendent more worried about what their numbers look like, rather then what might be best for the student.
Agreed.
You’ve essentially and unknowingly hit upon the problem with education and raising children today. That being the way we pander to the whims of students and parents. Don’t like your locker or the fact that some adult consequated you for an infraction against social norms? NO PROBLEM, we’ll just send you to another school. Again and again and again until you feel really-really comfortable. Just like your boss will do in real life, right? At more times than Bowen is showing, these children and their parents need to be told to buck up and get used to difficulty and challenge in school/workplace because life is about facing difficulty and challenge without quitting or running away. It’s pretty obvious that Bowen is simply making a political point here, one that has been rejected by the majority and likely will do great harm to many of the futures of the children he’s shuffled like play things in his party’s bag of toys.
You are so way off base Still relaxin. There are REAL issues and problems and reasons for kids to be moved to another district. As a parent who has a kid on a super’s agreement, I can tell you that for a fact. I have more than one child, and our request had absolutely NOTHING to do with dissatisfaction of the education or not liking something the way the school did it (except for their inability to deal with bullying). With more than one child in school, don’t you think I’d love to have all my kids in one place, and not have to deal with driving one of them to school 15 miles away and back every day? One of our kids was so tormented and abused by some classmates and no intervention tried by the school or by us (even legal which doesn’t help much with kids that are only 6 to 9 years old) helped. When our child started expressing suicidal thoughts and we had to resort to counseling, we finally took this one out of public School (5th grade!!!). AFter a couple of years of private at a huge expense, we asked for an agreement to go to a neighboring district. Our child is still dealing with those emotions from early school but has become an extremely successful high school student. It has been nothing but a pure hardship on our family. I would have sold my soul and uprooted the entire family had this one agreement not been possible. I would have to uproot the WHOLE family in the best interest of the one because her life was so significantly and negatively impacted by her peers. Fortunately we got an agreement, and the other kids can continue where they were. They are very very happy and doing well in the same schools, with same teachers that ONE of our kids did not. Every kid and every case if different.
So before too many are too critical of ALL agreements, know the facts. And to the analogy of your boss and job in real life??? If I had been treated like my child and felt like she did in the presence of my co-workers… sure has heck I’d be getting a NEW job. I would not stay in that kind of environment.
Am I “wayyyy… off base” or are you perhaps fixated on issues surrounding “your” family? Of course the world is a bigger place than you and my comment wasn’t directed at the extremes described in your isolated situation. Of course there will be occasions where placement will be in the best interest of everyone…including the school losing the “troubled” students. As it should be and as it has always been. But in general (As my comment clearly implies), when placed in a school it’s time to face all the challenges that exist there. Aside from academics, learning to deal with problems or even problem people are part of one’s learning. If one cannot, then there is the very real possibility that one may eventually fail to thrive in the workplace/life as well (I’m hopeful that this cautionary thought has crossed your mind in the past few years). Schools, many parents and many manipulative politicians currently seem to be actively attempting to create individuals who are both needy and dependent. Two qualities that our society is increasingly becoming tired of supporting. Where will mom and dad or Mr. Bowen be 10-20 years down the road? Likely trying to live their own lives not coddling some 30 year old through another job or social program. I do wish you well and hope things work out for you and your children.
AMEN! I’m in that same boat but the bully was a teacher. We went to the school board, superintendent, all the way to the Commissioners office. My 13 year old daughter testified to the Education Commission for school choice. It was there that I learned about superintendent swaps. I home schooled at great expense and now drive to a neighboring town to a school that has a zero tolerance for bullying regardless of last name and who is doing it.
Ohhh, the horror of allowing parents/students to go to the school of their choice!
If Commissioner
Stephen Bowen get his way rural students will be force to take correspondence
courses instead of live classrooms.
This might save
some money in the short term but it will do permanent harm to Maine’s rural
children .
typical republican- to do its own thing regardless of what the other branch of
government has decided. So what if they weren’t successful at making it
the law, they’ll do it anyway.Not just here,everywhere
Seems that Rep. Richardson does not know what is going on in Maine’s education area, yet he is the House chairman–interesting!