Towns weigh school unit Vassalboro, China, Winslow consider consolidation plans

Morning Sentinel, March 20, 2008

(excerpt) Vassalboro wants to explore whether going back to the future will satisfy the state-mandated school consolidation initiative.

Lori Fowle, chairman of the Vassalboro School Committee, sees reforming the School Union 52 towns of Vassalboro, Winslow and China as a regional school unit (RSU) as a reasonable -- and possibly preferable -- option to the eight-community RSU once planned.

That larger school system combined Union 52 with Waterville and the four towns of School Administrative District 47 (Oakland, Belgrade, Sidney, Rome).

But Waterville already has pulled out of the proposed RSU and even SAD 47 has kept open the option of remaining a four-town school unit.

"I think early on it was something we wanted to do," Fowle said of sticking exclusively with Winslow and China, "but we didn't know what the cost factors were."

Fowle, however, said she and the rest of her board now have a better understanding of the costs and see reforming Union 52 as an RSU as a viable option.

"We meet the criteria of an RSU," she said, "as far as our student population and that we have a high school."