KINGFIELD — An informational hearing on Kingfield’s withdrawal plan from Maine School Administrative District 58 drew a small crowd Thursday evening as residents discussed their options in a changing district.
Kingfield, like nearby Strong, has successfully negotiated a withdrawal plan with MSAD 58 and received conditional approval from the state Department of Education. Both towns are now looking toward a Nov. 3 vote to decide whether to leave the district.
Part of the rigorous, 22-step withdrawal process are meetings to inform the public. Kingfield held its district-wide meeting the evening after Strong’s, provoking similar questions and answers from a smaller audience of roughly a dozen people, compared to the 50 or so who attended the meeting in Strong.
As was the case the previous evening, committee members said that their biggest goal has been protecting Kingfield Elementary School.
MSAD 58’s board has been looking at consolidating its facilities for years. Some of those proposals in the past have involved closing KES.
“We were hearing too many times that the Kingfield school was going to be closed,” Kim Jordan, a committee member, former MSAD 58 director and current select board member, said.
Uncertainty at the district level, linked to statewide trends of falling enrollment figures and aging buildings, as well as rising costs for Kingfield residents led to the formation of the committee, Jordan said. A complicating factor has been that Strong residents are also considering leaving the district.
Similar to Strong, Kingfield residents support withdrawing in part to gain more local control over their school system.
Kingfield’s plan has been conditionally accepted by the state. As the case in Strong and elsewhere in the state, the DOE mandated tighter language around the plan’s oversight of special education.
As would be the case in Strong, Kingfield would acquire its school and run it as a pre-K through grade 8 facility, with a principal and part-time superintendent. Students would be able to attend their current school through the 2027-28 year, but then would only be able to attend a program in another district with a superintendent’s agreement.
Unlike Strong, which has secured agreements with three high schools for Strong students to choose from, Kingfield is identifying Mount Abram High School as the only school of guaranteed acceptance. The cost would be 105 percent of MSAD 58’s tuition rate, as set by the state.
Transportation would be provided to that school; if a household chose to send a student elsewhere, they would have to transport them.
Securing the future of the nearby high school was a priority for the committee.
“No one wants to see Mount Abram close,” committee member Mathias Ringle said. “It’s super important for all of us that it remains a viable option for our students.”
The committee said other elements of the agreement — that Kingfield pay its proportional share of the district’s debt and for the remaining two years on the superintendent’s contract — would also benefit MSAD 58.
Kingfield would take 15 percent of MSAD 58’s undesignated funds, to a minimum of $300,000. The district would retain funds placed in reserve accounts.
That $300,000 would go toward the needs of the new Kingfield School Administrative Unit, including potentially creating reserves for school maintenance or special education. The preliminary budget in the plan includes $70,000 a year for maintenance as well.
KES is believed to be in reasonably good shape. Committee members said that that and other factors, such as a low amount of districtwide debt and a healthy undesignated fund, made it more advantageous to consider leaving now, rather than in a few years after MSAD 58 had committed bonded funds for renovations.
“That’s why we’re saying ‘right now is the time,’” Jordan said. “By 2028, that could change drastically.”
As was the case in Strong, committee members stressed that the budget was a best guess for the state — not including things like tuition revenue or grants. A real budget would need to be developed by the new superintendent and school board, committee members said, but it would be unlikely to cost more than residents are paying now.
That is due to Kingfield’s comparatively higher valuation, committee advisor John Witherspoon said. As a result, Kingfield provides 40 percent of the district’s locally-raised funds but only 17 percent of its students.
“Really, there’s not a scenario where it would cost us more,” Witherspoon said. “We’re paying 40 percent now, anyway. I think it would be hard for us to spend more money.”
MSAD 58 Chair Jessica Cain of Phillips opened the meeting, as is required by the state. When discussion turned to the district’s plans, she said that MSAD 58 hoped to put its own road map in front of residents prior to the November vote. While that plan wouldn’t be fully complete, Cain said, it would provide people with an idea about what the district hoped to accomplish.
“We are in hopes to have another option outlined before [Nov. 3],” Cain said.
Cain, committee members and those in attendance all agreed that the number of ongoing processes complicated everything. Kingfield and Strong will vote this year whether to leave, while Phillips is further behind in the process and Avon is sticking with MSAD 58. Any town leaving would change the scenarios for the others, which make even short-term planning difficult.
While expressing some concerns over budgeting, particularly for special education, many of those in attendance were supportive of the work the committee had done and optimistic that the new district would be good for the school and for Kingfield children.
“We see this as an opportunity to turn things around for our school and our whole town,” Ringle said.
Another meeting will be held in Kingfield on Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. at KES. That meeting will be hosted by the withdrawal committee and be geared toward Kingfield residents.
The vote will be held on Nov. 3, coinciding with the statewide elections. A two-thirds majority is required to withdraw from the district; if approved, the Kingfield SAU would officially begin operations on July 1, 2027.
The meeting was recorded by Mt. Blue TV.
